I don't know what happened to the original thread??
There were some really good posts about effective learning.
I hope it hasn't been deleted forever??
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Duolingo/Memrise....
Anyway back to the point.
I use Memrise, and it does offer pictures sometimes.
But the multiple choice questions are too easy.
So I avert my eyes from the answers, and then answer the question.
Then I look for my answer in the list.
If I am stuck, I peep at the correct answer, and select THE WRONG ANSWER..
That way, I am sure it will repeat the question soon.
I find that works for me.
You don't have to use multiple choice as "multiple choice"!!
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For some reason, I stopped using duolingo..
I guess I wasn't so impressed??
And Memrise has the exact content I was looking for.
The fact that one has to avert the eyes, cover stuff, and otherwise work around the system as it was built by Memrise is a sign of poor design. I understand that it makes for more straightforward automated grading.
Pleco (excellent Chinese dictionary with flashcard system) has a mode where they trust you to say the word to yourself and grade yourself after they show/play you the correct answer. This works very well. In fact their whole system works amazingly well and I wish they had a German language counterpart.
We'll see how the vocabularyschool site pans out.
Repetitions, which has both a free version and a cheap paid version, is my favorite. It's like Anki but without all the crazy super customization and unlike Anki, Repetitions allow full functions to be accessed both on a computer and on your phone (Anki needs a computer always!). You can do 3-sided cards, add sound, sync btwn computer and phone and all that, so it's great.
I'm a Duolingo fan for sure. I use both the app on my iPad and the website on my PC. They are slightly different. When I'm doing a new lesson I try to use the computer because it offers more explanation, conjugations, discussion with other people, etc. I tend to use my app more for strengthening skills and challenging others to a competition for speed practice. I also like it because when you go back and strengthen skills they are usually more difficult than they originally were, incorporating new words or grammatical problems.
I've been using it since January and I can tell a huge difference in my ability!
For beginners, I really liked Michael Thomas's 8 hour program. Within a few days I felt comfortable enough to at least open my mouth and try to speak the language. He also explained relationships among words and sounds that has really helped. (Unfortunately, not a free app.)
I also have iLang, Lingo Arcade and Kleine Grammatik apps for very basic vocabulary and really great charts.
Finally, my husband has been reading stuff on FB from "German Language Learners (Wir lernen Deutsch)" and I'm going to start looking at that also.
Nur meine zwei Rappan!