The key to language acquisition is vocabulary-building. The best way to build your vocabulary is through comprehensive input (i.e., reading and listening). An efficient way to maintain your vocabulary is to use an Spaced Repetition System (SRS). There is no doubt about it. Look around and you will see everybody in the language-learning circle talks about SRS. I myself have also experienced the power of it.

I would like to share with you a few of my SRS tips in this post. “Best practices” here simply refer to my own best practices I have discovered so far. Feel free to share with me your own best practices.

DO - Review new vocabulary right away
I did not realize the importance of immediate review of new vocabulary until someone gave me this advice. After you read something and encounter some new vocabulary, input them into your SRS and review them right away. This way, you review the new vocabulary when they are still fresh in your memory, thus reinforcing retention. More importantly, the context of the new vocabulary is also fresh in your memory. Remember, the best way to remember new vocabulary is through context. Without context, we go back to rote memorization.

DO - Review new vocabulary first
At any point in time when you are working on your SRS, you face with 3 types of cards: new ones, old ones, and failed ones. New cards should always be reviewed first, because you want to start the scheduling as early as possible. Then comes the old cards. I always review the failed cards last, because they tend to be more difficult and often give me a strong sense of discouragement.

DON’T - Try to remember everything
An earlier misconception I had with SRS was that I thought SRS would help me to remember all of my vocabulary. When I failed to remember a word, I would become really frustrated. I later learned that forgetting is just part of the remembering process. It is alright to forget. I should not feel bad when I fail to remember a word. Often when the difficult words reappear in another context, they begin to stick. The beauty of SRS is that it tracks all your forgotten vocabulary. When time comes, you will remember them.

DON’T - Replace comprehensive input activities with SRS
SRS is quite addicting. You may find yourself spending hours everyday working on your SRS. However, you should only build your vocabulary through comprehensive input activities. You should only add new vocabulary you have encountered from your reading and listening, and not from dictionaries or other people’s decks. Therefore, do not bury yourself too much in SRS. Spend more time reading and listening in your target language.

• Loué le deuxième volet des aventures d’Harry Potter de la bibliothèque. Lu 2 chapitres dans le café. #
• Fini chapitre 3 de “la chambre des secrets” aujourd’hui. #
• 給了三歲半女兒一個小測騇.她以學懂這些字/Gave my 3.5 yr old daughter a quiz. She already knows these characters：人口手耳大小上中下水火天山兩米牛羊肉毛光月女. #
• Spanish Anki now over 700 cards. #
• Started Japanese Anki with 3 cards. Not sure if it will last. #
• LingQ’s ‘% of unknown words’ feature is still not back. Strange that I am the only one who feels inconvenient. Others seems to be ok w/o it. #
• Listening to an interview of Lorna Robinson, a Latin advocate. OMG! Is that RP that she speaks? http://tinyurl.com/bgjmwu #

• Clear my ANKI deck from my cell phone while waiting in the customs. #
• In Atlanta again this week. Tried this Japanese restaurant. Japanese servers, menus, and even customers. Looked authentic enough. #
• 想transcribe埋叮噹下半部份, 先發覺個clip畀人刪咗! http://www.cantophilia.com/2008/08/doraemon.html #
• Pourquoi beaucoup de gens aiment parler de leur apprentissage des langues dans leur langue maternelle? http://tinyurl.com/c7s7z4 #
• 昨天在停车场帮助了一个讲普通话的婆婆. 在接近零度的气温下她抱著孙子站著等候她的儿子.我用我的手电替她找到了他. 看来自己的普通话好像有点儿退步了. #
• Fait un poste dans lang-8 parlant d’un restaurant japonais. http://lang-8.com/journal/89322 #
• New post for Cantonese learners. I know I should update the blog more often. Sorry about that. http://tinyurl.com/aemrkf #
• With the same 140-character limit, I find that I can express more in Chinese than in English. 同样是一百四十字限,我发现写中字比较写英文能表达更多. #
• Decided to restart my French Anki deck. 780 cards in total, 600+ due. Got down to 500 tonight. #
• “Percentage of unknown words” feature disappeared from LingQ. This is the most precious feature of the system to me. I am very disappointed! #
• Ok, they promised the feature will be added back tomorrow. What a relief! #
• Went into Luthanasia lounge at the Atlanta airport. Googled from a computer. All settings were set to German! #
• Watched a few Mandarin stories in flash w/ daughter tonight at 61flash.com. She enjoyed a lot but probably didn’t understand much. #
• Écouté “le café” par Oldelaf and Mr D. beaucoup de temps aujourd’hui. C’est très dépendance … comme le café! http://tinyurl.com/64b47l #
• Recently seeing more Latinos in my area. Just found another Latino mom and daughter sitting at the next table in Tim Holtons. #
• Came back from IKEA. This one in North York always gives me a feeling of being in a united nation, with people speaking different languages. #
• Hoy he empezado a leer (y escuchar) Los Hechos de los Apóstoles en Español. #
• Trying iKnow for the 1st time. Pretty neat. Very promising app! Still exploring its features. Anyone knows how to get the Romanji displayed? #

• Completo 2 Pedro. #
• My review on the book “Sorry, I Don’t Speak French” on the language struggle in the recent history of Canada. http://tinyurl.com/awfzbu #
• Hoy revisado más de 100 palabras españoles en Anki. #
• Changed my blog theme. How does it look? http://www.towerofconfusion.com/ #
• Leyendo el cuento corto “Casa tomada”, gracias a Eleena http://tinyurl.com/bxt96d #
• 點解最近LingQ咁鬼慢… #
• Hay una estación de radio en Español en Atlanta FM105.7. Escucho cuando estoy en el coche. Creo que se llama Viva. http://tinyurl.com/c5w8ha #
• I wonder if any multilinguist can actually earn big $$$. Anyone? #
• Envoyé un écrit dans lang-8 pour la correction. http://tinyurl.com/bulutr #
• Reçu ma correction de lang-8. Il est vraiment rapide! #
• Returned to the 20th position on the LingQ ladder for Spanish. I rarely take it seriously anyway. Their ‘activitiy score’ system is biased. #
• Importé 2 episodios de Lingus.tv a LingQ. #
• Got off the plane last night and heard about the crash. It was Hudson River in NY. This time it landed on a house in Buffalo! Hate flying! #
• Spoke to Chinese bakery lady in Canto & Mando, responded in English. Switched to English then. Later heard she spoke to colleague in Canto! #
• Anki question: Anyone knows how to have contents of imported cards overriding existing ones, while retaining review data? #
• Esta increíble niño memoriza los títulos de un libro de historias biblicas. http://tinyurl.com/b35bzs #
• “Hasta de un tonto a veces se aprenden cosas.”, dijo la blogger más vieja del mundo. http://amis95.blogspot.com/2008/11/preguntona.html #

I recently read the book “Sorry, I Don’t Speak French“, which gave a very comprehensive account on the language struggle in the recent history of Canada.

To those who are not familiar with the issue, French has been spoken predominately in the Quebec province, and English in the rest of Canada. The Quebeckers resent the lack of recognition of their language in other provinces. The rest of the country wondered why so much time and effort are wasted in forcing them to learn French.

There are a lot of points to ponder after reading the book. I am going to share two of them in this post.

The author quoted William Mackey who pointed out decades ago, that there would be fewer bilingual people in bilingual countries than there would be in monolingual countries. This is not difficult to understand. A fully-functional bilingual country will guarantee the maintenance and use of either language, hence there would be no urgency for them to learn the other language. On the other hand, in a monolingual country, people (often immigrants) have to learn the official language, and becoming bilingual as a result.

The author’s interview with Stephen Harper also turned out to be very interesting. While Harper was working on improving his French back in the late 80’s, he became interested in international language policies. After studying the history, he concluded that governments in the past could not change the actual language use of individuals by simply enforcing laws and policies. It could only be done through displacing populations, through genocide, or through what is now called ethnic cleansing: mass movement of populations. The author obvious disagreed with Mr. Harper, but I tend to agree with the Prime Minister.

The author concluded that the contemporary Canada language policies have been a failure, and this I agree with him very much. He gave a few recommendations, mostly by creating more policies. I am sceptical about this. I think the real issue is not about languages. It is fundamentally a conflict of cultures.

The author was a bilingual (fluent in English and French), but he was certainly not a linguist. Sorry, I don’t think Japanese is a tonal language.