Six rules for vocabulary flashcards that stick

Spaced repetition only works as well as the cards you feed it. A good card takes a few seconds to review and gives you a clear "I knew it" or "I didn't". A bad one makes every session slower and leaves you unsure what you actually know. Six rules for writing the good kind:

1. One thing per card

A card that asks for three meanings at once is a card you will always half-know. Split it.

• Not: tener → to have; to be (hungry, cold, 20 years old); must (tener que)
• Better: tener → to have, and a separate card tengo hambre → I'm hungry

2. Learn phrases, not only words

You rarely say a word on its own. La estación is fine, but ¿Dónde está la estación? is something you will actually need. Short, useful phrases also carry the grammar with them — the article, the verb form, the word order — without a separate rule to memorise.

3. Keep the answer short

The back of the card should be something you can check at a glance. If the answer needs a paragraph, the card is asking too much. Put the extra on the side instead (see rule 5).

4. Make it yours

A card about your own life is easier to remember than one from a textbook. Mi hermana vive en Valencia beats El hombre vive en la ciudad — if you have a sister in Valencia. Write examples you could really say.

5. Put the context in a note

In Brain Cards every card can carry notes on its back: an example sentence, a hint, a warning about a false friend. You see them after you answer, so they help without giving the answer away. Tengo hambre with the note "literally I have hunger: Spanish uses tener for it" is a card that teaches a pattern, not only a phrase.

6. Don't learn everything at once

Every card you learn today comes back in a couple of days, again about a week and a half later, and again after that. Fifty new words learned in one evening come back together, fifty at a time, on each of those days. A handful of new cards a day keeps your sessions short enough that you keep doing them.

So learn a few new words a day rather than a whole chapter in one sitting, and keep adding words as you meet them: a word from today's conversation is easier to remember than one from a list.