Do Flashcards Work for Language Learning?

Yes, for the parts of a language that have to be memorised: vocabulary, writing systems, word forms and set phrases. Flashcards with spaced repetition are one of the most efficient ways to make those stick. They don't replace listening, reading or speaking practice; they make those easier by giving you the words.

What the research supports

Much of the classic evidence comes from vocabulary learning. The 2008 Science study by Karpicke and Roediger used foreign-language word pairs and found that testing yourself on words you'd learned, rather than restudying them, produced far better recall a week later. Kornell's 2009 flashcard study used vocabulary pairs too, and found that spacing them out beat cramming for 90% of participants.

What flashcards are good for

• Vocabulary. Especially the most common few thousand words, which make up most of everyday speech and text.
• Scripts. Hiragana, katakana and Chinese characters are pure memorisation, which flashcards handle well.
• Word forms. Verb conjugations, noun genders and measure words, with sentence or cloze cards.
• Set phrases. Greetings and expressions you need to produce whole.

What they can't do alone

• Listening speed. Understanding fast natural speech takes hours of listening, though audio on cards helps.
• Speaking fluency. Producing sentences in real time takes practice speaking. Sentence cards that show English and ask for the target language are the closest a flashcard gets.
• Reading fluency. Lots of reading builds it; flashcards supply the vocabulary that makes the reading possible.

A practical routine

Do your flashcard reviews daily, a short session, and spend the rest of your study time reading, listening and speaking. As your vocabulary grows, the other practice gets easier, and it in turn reinforces the words on your cards.

References: Karpicke & Roediger (2008), doi.org/10.1126/science.1152408. Kornell (2009), doi.org/10.1002/acp.1537.