Are Flash Cards Effective for Learning Foreign Languages?
Channel: Alex Zorach
Date: 2016-09-14

It is common to use flash cards to learn vocabulary in a foreign language.  But this approach can create the misconception of a one-to-one correspondence between foreign words and those in your native tongue. Here I explain how words don't correspond this way, and learning new words in context is a better way to grasp the internal structure of a language, learning more the way native speakers learn. I think this results in a much more efficient use of time in the long-term, because it avoids having to unlearn bad habits formed by applying the logic of your native language to words in a foreign language.