Hi Ron! Glad you’re enjoying these recent additions! This is indeed a challenging, knowing how to balance everything. I know this is a cop-out but it’s hard to give a one-size-fits-all recommendation, because it depends on your current level and goals… Do you want to be able to have certain specialized conversations where you need specific vocabulary? If so, you will likely collect more phrases from the translator or related Shorties etc and therefore spend more time reviewing these phrases throughout the day whenever you have a few moments. This might end up being more than half of your study time, when compared to going through new Units.
On the other hand, if your goal is more general, and you’d like to just be able to speak and understand day-to-day conversation, you might prioritize going through the Units. Of course, you’ll still want to keep your Smart Review up-to-date, but you might be more careful to only save the most useful phrases you come across, so you can spend more time progressing through the Units.
Does that help at all? Feel free to follow up since these are great conversations for us to have as we continue tweaking and improving!
Olá Joel-
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. Very helpful. After completing several flash card review sets I feel like this will fill a gap & accelerate my learning.
I like the random out of context flash card deck for review. It has a pop quiz feel that makes it both fun & challenging. Also, as a self-assessment tool to identify lessons/concepts I no-doubt will need to revisit.
I am a new user and LOVE the program! I have tried many others—Duolingo, Babbel, Pimsleur, etc., and Practicing Portuguese is by far the best! Obrigada!
Most of the navigation is quite clear as well—except the Smart Reviews. I can’t find them! Shouldn’t they be under the Practices menu? Where are they? How do I get to them?
The flash cards are under learn → smart review → flash cards
You add entries to the flash cards whenever you see a the little rounded box with a portuguese word/sentence in bold and the english translation below, with three dots on the right side of the box (containing options to hear the spoken word slowly or normally, and with the option to “add to smart review”). The learning notes are full of these little boxes, and at the end of each of the lessons there’s usually also a bunch of them available.
I love the app, and especially the smart review section. To this I have a question: Is there any possibility to have the smart review in both directions, so English → Portugues (as it is right now) and flashcards for Portugues → English?
Also, is it possible to change the number of words per group?
Otherwise, these would be really helpful features that should not be too hard to implement. Muito Obrigado for the app!
Thanks for your kind words and for reaching out! Absolutely, both of your suggestions are part of a long overdue Smart Review overhaul that is currently underway. Hoping to have the start of these updates launched in the coming weeks, and these suggestions are at the top of the list.
Smart Review will also become much more manageable, since the biggest complaint is how quickly the backlog accumulates, especially if you’re not on top of it all the time.
I hope it will remain possible to have the backlog accumulate at the same pace as currently?
I love my smart reviews and spend the majority of my study time on them. I think they are absolutely crucial to my otherwise rubbish memory being able to recall the things I have learnt.
Yes don’t worry. We will make it easier for people who don’t want their Smart Review to get out of hand but we will add settings to let you customize the length of the sessions etc.
@joelrendall , thank you for Smart Review. I use Babbel for español. PP SmartReview is THE BEST!
I would love to have settings for things like maximum repetition interval so that I can be reminded for things I once mastered. You see, I once mastered and memorized Beethoven’s First Piano Sonata, but now don’t even know what note it starts on. So for people like me, there is no such thing as “mastered”. I always need reminding or things disappear forever.
Also, I use SmartReview to test my knowledge of different inflections and subjects, so that when I see something like “Passas por minha casa hoje a noite”, I also think:
Ele passa por minha casa hoje a noite
Nós passamos por vossa casa amanhá a noite
etc.
PP doesn’t need to torture us in that way (although I’d be welcome to it), but it would be cool to see a popup inflection table on selected flash cards so that we wouldn’t have to have a PT dictionary app open at the same time. For the example above, a simple popup table of “passar, presente” would be extraordinarily useful.
I have just seen a screen telling me I have 134 smart reviews (rather than the old 100+ which could mean 134 or 634). I am very happy about that, I love knowing what is ahead of me
Ron
