Learning Songs Using the SRS: My Current Method
Just by way of sharing concrete tactics (rather than, I guess, the abstract strategy I usually share (?)), I thought I’d write about how I learn songs using the SRS.
Keep in mind that this is just what I do right now. Yes, I am the Great Khatzumoto, but you know what? Really I’m just a 27-year-old boy who drinks peppermint tea and plays with his cats. I don’t know jack about jack. This is just what was most fun and least annoying for me. You’re bound to have a better idea and I’d love to hear about it if you’d like to share
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Put another way: a lot of AJATT strategic principles are universal, I think. But the tactical stuff is totally a matter of “what works for you”. I mean, we might not even be running the same OS, so…you know. Anyway, here we go!
The Steps
- Have a song that you love, love, love and wish you could sing along to
- If at any point in this process you get bored…stop. The worst thing you could do for your Chinese/Japanese/any language is start to associate it with boredom. That there is the gateway to failure. Having fun with and in the language is the name of the game.
- Get an mp3 file of the song.
- Split the file into 10~30-second clips with ~5 seconds of backward overlap
- I add a 5-second backward overlap because a split on strict time boundaries is bound to be imperfect in that it’ll cut right in the middle of something good.
- Adding the overlap provides a way to automatically compensate for this without going through the psychological and computational heck of attempting to split on something like silence-points.
- I use EZSoftMagic’s MP3 Splitter & Joiner for this automated splitting
- They’re not paying me for this endorsement, but they should
- If you know of any other software that does a good job at this, feel free to share in comments.
- They’re not paying me for this endorsement, but they should
- The reason we split the file and not just throw the whole thing into the SRS is because we are trying to do what the SRS does best – optimize the management and memorization of discrete chunks of information. Throwing the entire song in there is (1) boring and (2) defeats the purpose of even having an SRS.
- I add a 5-second backward overlap because a split on strict time boundaries is bound to be imperfect in that it’ll cut right in the middle of something good.
- Get the lyrics of the song
- Put the audio clip into the SRS on the back of the card
- Put one line or less of the lyrics on the front of the card
- i.e. the lyrics of a segment of the 10~30-second clip, not of the whole clip
- Put the lyrics of the whole 10~30-second clip, or of the entire song, on the back of the card.
- I prefer putting the lyrics of just the whole clip because it’s easier to read
- But sticking the lyrics of the entire song on the back could save you a lot of fiddling
- Do your reps.
- The task is to read aloud or sing the line/segment of the line of the song
- Check your “answer” against the actual song clip
- Final note: if any of this feels like too much work, then stop. Abort. Delete. Whatever. Because you obviously don’t like the song enough. You may like the song, just not enough, not that much. And that’s fine. Remember, the idea is to be like Soviet Russia: let the media motivate you — that’s its job. All you have to do is put yourself in the path of the media.
Sample Card
FRONT
男兒當自強
[Youtube]
BACK
[media: naam yi dong ji keung- 007.mp3]
廣闊浩氣揚 既是男兒當自強 昂步挺胸
jìshì【既是】
…であるからには.…である以上.
gei si naam yi dong ji keung
Benefits of this method
- Over time, with very little effort, you learn the entire song
- As per SRS principles, the parts of the song that give you the most trouble – and that therefore need the most practice – will get seen the most
- Ever notice how almost everyone knows the chorus of a song no matter how complex the vocabulary? (I remember being about 6 years old and singing Bobby Brown’s “it’s my prerogative!”). That’s because the chorus gets repeated so much. SRSing the song turns the entire song into a “chorus”, in that all the parts of the song will get repeated to the degree necessary to ensure their memorization.
- No need to fiddle with carrying lyric sheets in your bag or on your computer – it’s not like you can ever get them out on time anyway.
- Even after the song stops getting playtime on your mp3 player, the SRS will ensure that you keep getting practice with it. This is a microcosm of how the SRS is a powerful partner to an immersion environment – even after you stop immersing in, say, technical documents from a certain field, the SRS will guarantee you keep getting the practice in that field that you need to retain your proficiency in it.
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