Superlearning?

[quote]sinnaman18 wrote:
Have you tried Ginko, DMAE or any other supplement to help in this area?
[/quote]

Yes. I have tried Ginkgo by itself without any noticeable effect. I’ve tried Power Drive (DMAE), and I like it. I’ve tried Piracetam (Nootropil), and I liked it a lot, except that it was way too expensive.

I’ve tried Modafinil, but I require a higher than normal dosage to stay awake with it, and have had no learning effect that I was able to discern. I haven’t given Spike a fair shake, yet.

[quote]nephorm wrote:
I’ve tried Piracetam (Nootropil), and I liked it a lot, except that it was way too expensive.
[/quote]

The number and quality of nootropic suppliers has skyrocket over the past year. Piracetam is cheap and available in bulk (google…). Beware the taste though.

Spike is subtle and after being used to Power Drive I didn’t think it was doing anything. I do like it and should get some more (I got the sample) to experiment with. Power Drive is great for…e.g. late nights that I need to work.

[quote]ScottL wrote:
The number and quality of nootropic suppliers has skyrocket over the past year. Piracetam is cheap and available in bulk (google…). Beware the taste though.
[/quote]

I should’ve mentioned the other thing I disliked about it: you could choke an elephant with the number of tabs I had to take before I felt any effect. I think I’m largely resistant to nootropics.

For the last couple of days, I’ve been reading the articles on the SuperMemo website, and they definitely have a lot of fascinating information about memory, learning, and knowledge.
What I’m wondering is: to anyone who has used it, how valuable is it to you? How reliant are you on it? Would you recommend buying it, or would an older, but free version be sufficient? Do you use it when preparing for exams? Any other experiences with SuperMemo you can share?

I just graduated from high school, and will be going to university in september, so this thread, and “being a good student” came just in time.

kligor: if you make it a part of your daily study routing, rather than viewing it as a supplement, it will be extremely helpful. Basically, you should be taking the time you spent making normal notes, and use it to put your notes into supermemo form. That way, you’ll have a running catalog of all the pertinent information for all of your classes, throughout the semester and beyond.

I didn’t have the program when I was in school, so I use it now for Latin vocabulary… it helps. Like I said, it’s no panacea. It’s just a better, more organized version of flashcards. Try the free version first, and see if you like it. If you do, contact me.

The SuperMemo site is awesome. Ton of great info there.

Learning to Space has prob. had the biggest impact on my education…especially with foregin languages.

…actually, now that I hear Neph. is learning Latin, it makes me want to learn too…at least we’d have someone else to speak in latin to.

I am a huge believer in SUPERMEMO for memorising anything particularly languages. I lived in Japan for 2 years, and using SUPERMEMO was able to memorise over 12,000 words (at 92% accuracy) in little over 18 months. (I was doing this at 30 new words every day in the beginning) On top of this I was able to remember the readings for all 1945 Kanji in 6 months, as well as all the grammar points needed for the 2kyu examination. I was able to pass 2kyu with roughly 18 months of study.

Sorry for the ad, but I am a huge believer in this program. One caveat, you HAVE to be committed and disciplined. You can’t take vacations from this program, because the words you need to restest accumulate everyday until you test them. This is good, because it forces you into a routine to learn.

[quote]randomweights2 wrote:
I am a huge believer in SUPERMEMO for memorising anything particularly languages. I lived in Japan for 2 years, and using SUPERMEMO was able to memorise over 12,000 words (at 92% accuracy) in little over 18 months. (I was doing this at 30 new words every day in the beginning) On top of this I was able to remember the readings for all 1945 Kanji in 6 months, as well as all the grammar points needed for the 2kyu examination. I was able to pass 2kyu with roughly 18 months of study.

Sorry for the ad, but I am a huge believer in this program. One caveat, you HAVE to be committed and disciplined. You can’t take vacations from this program, because the words you need to restest accumulate everyday until you test them. This is good, because it forces you into a routine to learn.[/quote]

Impressive. And, agreed.

randomweights: did you make your own collection, or did you download a pre-made one? If you made your own, you might want to consider sharing… I’m sure a lot of people on this site and elsewhere would like to use it to learn japanese!

Il Cazzo: If you want to start on Latin, there’s a free collection of 6000 words on the supermemo site. I also recommend Latin Via Ovid as a good book to work from, especially for grammar. If you like Harry Potter, you can get Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis from amazon.com.

I’m impressed! So far, SuperMemo has gotten only good reviews. However, everybody has mentioned it in connection with learning languages. Do you use it for other studies? To be more specific, in my first year in university, I will be taking kinesiology, psychology, natural science, and Greek and Roman history. Is there still as great a value for SuperMemo with these types of courses? Has anyone used it for non-language courses?

Thanks for the great recommendations.

[quote]nephorm wrote:
randomweights: did you make your own collection, or did you download a pre-made one? If you made your own, you might want to consider sharing… I’m sure a lot of people on this site and elsewhere would like to use it to learn japanese!

[/quote]

Neophorm, I made my own collection, because I believe that it’s very hard to learn new vocab unless it has been used in context. So if I hear new words, or I come across them in my studies they go into the pile. I then make sure I have at least 3 example sentences to accompany each word, so that if need be I can read how to use the word in context. (I also type the word in Kanji, hiragan and romaji) I would make them available to anyone who would want though. The Kanji ones took me ages to make, because I put a lot of example words alongside an enlarged version of the character being drilled.

Somebody else asked if you could use the program for non language use. I don’t see why not, and I think the Supermemo site gives you ways that you can do this.

[quote]kligor wrote:
Do you use it for other studies? To be more specific, in my first year in university, I will be taking kinesiology, psychology, natural science, and Greek and Roman history.[/quote]

Kligor: Check out the article “Supermemo Doesn’t Work!” (on the supermemo website) for some examples of how supermemo can be used for other subjects. It’s a very robust program… all of the subjects you mentioned are prime candidates.

I’ll be incorporating supermemo use this fall for my political theory courses, if for no other reason than as a way to start compiling notes for comps.

[quote]nephorm wrote:
kligor wrote:
Do you use it for other studies? To be more specific, in my first year in university, I will be taking kinesiology, psychology, natural science, and Greek and Roman history.

Kligor: Check out the article “Supermemo Doesn’t Work!” (on the supermemo website) for some examples of how supermemo can be used for other subjects. It’s a very robust program… all of the subjects you mentioned are prime candidates.

I’ll be incorporating supermemo use this fall for my political theory courses, if for no other reason than as a way to start compiling notes for comps.[/quote]

Good stuff!

I just downloaded the 1998 version of SuperMemo. I’m gonna explore the program this afternoon. I’ll fill it with some facts, and see what it’s all about.

well, I’ve done my exploration. I started with their introduction, and then, went exploring on my own. It was very confusing. I think I figured out how to add question-answer pairs. Did I misinterpret their presentation, or can you also input whole articles, not in question/answer format, and SuperMemo will make the questions for you?

[quote]kligor wrote:
Did I misinterpret their presentation, or can you also input whole articles, not in question/answer format, and SuperMemo will make the questions for you?[/quote]

There is a way to make “cloze-deletions,” where you take a paragraph, pick key phrases and words out of it, and supermemo will make a bunch of questions where each of the phrases is removed, and the answer is the removed phrase. You might want to join an online user group… there are a few of them. I think the software is great, but it is way too complicated for some of the stuff.

[quote]chrismcl wrote:

For example, learning a foreign language within a few months.

Right now I’m trying to learn Korean, and the only thing I would like better is to be able to learn Korean faster. (I don’t know anybody else who wouldn’t want that when trying to learn a new language)

I’m just wondering if anybody here has employed the techniques in the book and what sort of results they had.

Thanks.[/quote]

Hi Chris,

I read and implemented the Super learning technique to learn a foreign language (italian) about 7 years ago.

It was a lot of work trying to get the music and the pauses timed correctly, etc… Long story short…I abandoned the project after about 2 weeks. It seemed like too much work, for not much progress. YMMV

What did work for me was the Pimsleur audios. I highly recommend Pimsleur.

For example, I was able in 6 days (30 min/day)to learn enough russian to greet my friends and ask a few basic questions.

Plus it was fun, mainly because you get tested, every time and it is NOT just repeating what you learned previously, but actually having to think about, and extrapolate the answer from the previous teachings. I love a challenge, so it was fun for me.

Pimsleur can be expensive, but if you search a Peer-to-peer network you might find some audio files on there.

The Harry Lorraine books are good, also you might want to check out of the library books by Win Wenger (the Einstein Factor is his classic).

After reading all of the above posts about Supermemo, I have a feeling that it incorporates much of what Wenger talks about in his book about the feedback part of learning.

If you can get your hands on a light and sound machine (like Proteus or similar) that help your brain get into the proper brainwave range to learn quicker/better that also helped me learn and retain faster while I was going to college.

Hope this helps you,

William

P.S. Any typos are a result of my brain being faster than my fingers. :wink:

[quote]nephorm wrote:
There is a way to make “cloze-deletions,” where you take a paragraph, pick key phrases and words out of it, and supermemo will make a bunch of questions where each of the phrases is removed, and the answer is the removed phrase. You might want to join an online user group… there are a few of them. I think the software is great, but it is way too complicated for some of the stuff.[/quote]

Which version of SuperMemo do you have? Do you know if you can make cloze-deletions in the 1998 version? I tried figuring it out, but right now, I’m way too confused, so I might have missed it.

[quote]kligor wrote:
Which version of SuperMemo do you have? Do you know if you can make cloze-deletions in the 1998 version? I tried figuring it out, but right now, I’m way too confused, so I might have missed it.[/quote]

I have 2004. Here’s a link to start with for learning about cloze deletions: SuperMemo.com
I don’t have 98 installed, so I don’t know if you can do it… but I think you can.

[quote]nephorm wrote:
I have 2004. Here’s a link to start with for learning about cloze deletions: SuperMemo.com
I don’t have 98 installed, so I don’t know if you can do it… but I think you can.[/quote]

Thanks for the link. I found out that the cloze deletions feature is not available in the 1998 version. I guess I’ll stick to good ol’ question and answer format.

Just a couple of things i want to suggest with Supermemo.

  1. Keep it simple with things like vocab. For example, in the top frame put the English word, and in the bottom frame put the foreign word along with some example sentences. Putting sound and pictures will cost you too much time, and is only worth doing with words that may be REALLY hard to remember.

  2. Split your collections up. The first time I made a collection of 6000 words, and it was very unweildy. When I began to split the collections into sets of 1000 words, I could recall the words a lot better. I do not know the reasoning behind this, but it might have something to do with how your brain sorts things into comparments.

  3. BACK UP YOUR COLLECTIONS FREQUENTLY!! I cannot emphasise this enough. I dropped my external hard drive, and lost a shit load of words. I had backed up onto my PC a week earlier, but still lost a lot of vocab words.