Make Your Own Flashcards for New Language Learning

Since memorization is so important in learning a new language, tools to aid in memorizing should be one of the first things new language learners should obtain. Today, you can find memorization help online and on cd-rom for many languages. These can range from electronic flash cards to short videos that help with association skills. I believe, though, that having physical interaction helps with the memorization process and so I encourage you obtain flash cards on paper. You can download and print flash cards offered online and some cd-rom materials are sold with accompanying flash cards. But, making your own flash cards comes with added benefits that ready-made flash cards cannot offer.

Making flash cards by hand increases the amount of interaction you have with the language. You are copying the new vocabulary and grammar along with meanings in your own handwriting. Just the act of writing or copying by hand will help jump start the memorization process. Also, in the future when reviewing your flash cards seeing your own handwriting may help to jog your memory.

Also, making your own flash cards allows you to make flashcards for only one set of words at time. This way, the flashcards you have on hand are guaranteed to correspond with what you are currently studying because you made them that way. You will not have to sift through the stack of ready-made cards to find the words you need to study.

Another idea for helping with memorization by making your own flash cards is to use different color paper for each word type or separate sizes for vocabulary and grammar rules. You could set aside white flashcards for nouns and yellow for verbs and so on. You can also have smaller cards for vocabulary words and larger cards to write out important grammar rules or parsing tables. The colors and differing sizes will help with memorization since you will know at a glance if the vocabulary word you are looking at is a noun or verb and so on.

I recommend using index cards to make your own flashcards. The larger sized index cards can be easily divided into quarters to make vocabulary flash cards. And, leaving them whole gives you ample room to write out grammar rules or create tables. In addition to the vocabulary word, meaning and part of speech you may also wish to include the page number of the book that you found the word on in case you need to refer back to the appropriate lesson at any time.