08. Index cards.

When we learn a foreign language we need to be focused not only on the grammar, but also on the vocabulary. I've always had a problem with getting to know some new words, I couldn't remember them for longer than a few days. When I have to say something in English or French, I often forget even basic words and it's really hard for me to make a full sentence. My previous English teacher always said: "Knowledge is what you remember". I hated that expression, but in fact, she might have been right. Recently, I've started to wonder, what can I do to improve my vocabulary skills. Nowadays, the most popular way to do that is using index cards. I decided to try it and you know what? It's really effective! Several days ago my boyfriend showed me an application for computers and mobile phones, which is called Anki. It enables us to create our own database with words we want to learn. According to our needs, we can divide them into different groups and categories. There is also an opportunity to change the application language, for instance to French. After setting all preferences we can finally start to learn. Everyday, we may check our knowledge and repeat choosen words. And this is how it works.

After choosing the category, the application gives us a single word or phrase
we put earlier into a database. 

We can think of that and check the answer. Then we mark
one of three options: our response was correct, the word was easy or we need
to practice and revise that word. Thanks to our answer, the program decides,
how often it will show us this specific word.

Isn't that easy? I've been studying words this way for last week and I see that I can remember more. It takes only a few minutes, so everyone can find time to learn by Anki. What is more, we can study wherever we are, the only condition is to have a mobile phone. I truly recommend this method, I hope it will be useful for you.