September 1, 2008 – 5:24 pm
You can slow down the speed of sound in Byki Express and Byki Deluxe. Native speakers talking too fast for you? No problem. While in Learn mode, look for a small Turtle button (next to the Play button, near the bottom of the screen). Clicking that button will toggle SlowSound on and off. While SlowSound is activated, any word or phrase sound you hear will be slower than normal.
For instance, “Guten Abend,” (good evening in German)
will become
“G-g-u-u-t-t-e-e-n-n A-a-b-b-e-e-n-n-d-d.”
Why do this? Because slowing down sound helps you learn pronunciation. Use the Turtle button plenty and often, but especially when you are listening to long phrases or sentences. Sometimes, native speakers just talk too fast for non-natives to cope.
To make SlowSound even slower (or faster) than it already is, go to
Options > Sound > SlowSound Speed…
and adjust the little slide bar to “Slower” or “Faster”.
Tip: Use Ctrl+T (for turtle) to turn SlowSound on or off without having to depress the Turtle button with your mouse. Especially if your mouse is afraid of depressed turtles.
School has trained us all to think of wrong answers as failures. Red ink on a test represents a lower grade and thus a worse educational outcome. Teachers tell us to “learn from our mistakes,” but really the damage is done: our GPA has suffered. On to the next unit. Hope for better luck this time.
Well, now you’re out of school. And it’s time to stop abandoning your wrong answers and unanswered questions and start paying attention to them. Nobody’s grading you anymore, and moving on too quickly will leave you with weaknesses in your vocabulary that will stop you from progressing later on. So how can you make sure you’re not leaving valuable knowledge behind?
Re-learn your wrong answers.
Byki Deluxe has four self-testing modes: 1) self-reporting, 2) written, 3) listening comprehension, and 4) dictation, and all of them will allow you to create a new Byki list from your incorrect answers. We recommend that you always, always do this. Because unless you were aiming for less than 100%, you don’t want to leave gaps—or worse, false knowledge—in your memory. Learning the material on your plate is only step one of a successful language-learning process. If you really want to be able to speak French or Arabic when the time comes for you to use it, then you have to
- Learn the words
- Test yourself
- Re-learn your wrong answers
- Periodically refresh what you know
Step 3 can be tempting to skip. Nobody likes to look at the red ink on their exam; we like to pretend it never happened; we want to move on and get a fresh start. Don’t. Instead, look your mistakes in the eye and drill them until they’re correct in your memory. Then — and only then — will you progress unhindered down the path toward language nirvana.
And trust us, speaking another language is totally nirvana.
On our Web site we say that Byki Express and Byki Deluxe use a 3-step process to teach foreign languages:
- Preview It
Look through your cards.
- Recognize It
See the foreign sides and think of the English.
- Produce It
See the English sides and think of the foreign language.
You may find it tempting to skip Step 1. Don’t. We mean it. You will learn your Byki list faster and with greater retention if you preview the words and phrases first before you begin learning them. Why?
- Sometimes, just seeing a word and its translation can be enough to learn it. This is especially true with cognates (words that are the same in two languages) like the Spanish word for admirable: admirable. Imagine going into a 12-item list already knowing 2 items! And if you answer them correctly the first time you see them, Byki will mark your score higher and finishing your list will take less time.
- You may notice confusing problems before they happen. Imagine a list containing the Spanish word for yes, sí, and the Spanish word for if, si. Noticing that both of those words are in the list before you dive in might save you a lot of time sorting out why you’re getting so many wrong answers.
- Noticing a theme will help you correctly store words in your memory. If you notice that the list you’ve opened is oriented specifically toward ordering a taxi, you’re more likely to put a word like fare, which has multiple meanings in English, into its correct context the first time you learn it (a travel context, not a wellness context).
In conclusion, Preview It lets you hit the ground running. Don’t pass it by, or else you’ll end up wasting a lot of frustrating minutes in Recognize It you could have spent filling your brain with tasty language goodness. Mmm, it’s tangy!
