In the big podcast today, we're answering some tough questions from martinillo, including such topics as why JP hates flashcards still, what's good in Basque cinema, and why hasn't the team participated in the user book club! We'll also talk about the big new 20% discount for seniors.
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Hola Esti! Estoy leyendo el mismo libro.
JP, ¿cuántas veces te tenías a ver que, la campaña de las 7 tocas, antes de te reconoció esta?
I think that flashcards can help with spelling, or character recognition and that is good. If you have a live person making you work with the words in conversation they can be real good.
JP
I know you don’t like flash card, but what do you think of using flashcard in conjunction with actual media. What I mean is a student reads an actual magazine , newspaper or a SpanishPod dialog and making flashcard of new words. The student could study the flashcards a few minutes several times a day. Thne return to the original medial so that he/she will see the words in context.
cobre and stevestr, I hate 'em! I HATE flashcards... for language at least :)
Flashcards are usefull for drilling items into short-term and long-term memory. However, linguistic memory is different from long-term recall, getting really good at flashcards doesn't translate into language knowledge when it counts.
If you want to get good at something, you have to practice it. When you practice flashcards, you get good at recalling discrete items totally out of context. Linguistic memory, however, is totally context based. You are much more likely to remember the word for can-opener if someone hands it to you and makes you say it than if you drill the word "abrelatas" along with 20 other kitchen utensils on little two-sided cards.
Remember, folks, we all learned our first languages by INSTINCT. By the time we are five, we all master subordiante clauses. And there were no flashcards! Human beings have a huge capacity to learn langauge in context. The situation is different for adults learning language, mostly because adults develop bad language learning habits like asking for L1 translation, feeling bad about not understanding, or wasting time on placebo activities (like flashcards).
cobre, if you have someone helping you go through your flashcards, that's called having a teacher or a tutor.... the benefit is the communication and context they provide, not the flashcards.
stevestr, while I am alive I will never, never endorse Rosetta Stone as a language learning product. It's operant conditioning.
Now I'm sure 20 more people will chime in with how flashcards used in a particular way have helped them learn and now they're fluent in whatever langauge and it's all due to flashcards.
Whatever, kids! Spend your time how you want. It's a free country. But as someone who knows a little bit about learning language, I hate flashcards. Hate 'em. HATE. ;)
Thank you JP. There's certainly no denying your success at language learning. So what every you are doing, it seems to work.
JP,
I think I have a use for those flashcards I haven't bought yet.(other than the praxis ones, and in present form, they wouldn't work for this)
Wouldn't they make a good tarot deck?
deal 5 and make a story about them.
What learning games DO you find helpful?
JP that's good man. I wish you'd live in NY I'd say let's hang out and get some micheladas you could tell me more of your learning philosophies.
I tell people the same thing you learn a language just by being around it. The only difference I see is that people are less patient with you as an adult.
Esti,
la película que has mencionado sobre el español que no sabe hablar euskera me recuerda mucho a Yu Ming is ainm dom. Se trata de un chino que aprende el irlandés pero cuando viene a Irlanda no puede comunicar con nadie (al principio). Ésa también es muy graciosa. Dudo que exista otra película en irlandés y chino...
jajaja.... Here did you know oul Paddy could speak Chinese?
Otro buen libro de Garcia Márquez es El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba. Creo que un gallo es protagonista...
russ, ¿qué pasa? ¿te gusta el libro? ¿me lo recomendas?
Nunca he usado flashcards(tarjetas de memoria o algo no sé) ... porque creo que me tardaría demasiado tiempo en hacerlos.
Cobre and Stevestr- If you guys like using flashcards, you might try doing it with whole sentences on the cards instead of individual words. That way you get context and grammar.
(I used to use them and they helped some, but since finding Spanishpod I've ditched them : )
dubhais
awww pobre Yu Ming. me alegro de que hubiera un final feliz
ya dijerán que joven Paddy puede hablar chino irlandes, ingles y español.
jb71,
I think whatever one needs to do to get the first 100 words or so set in memory doesn't matter. Those are the hard ones. The sounds, a few basic verbs and nouns. Flashcards may help some. After that it is the relation of those bits to each other that tells.
My favorite "exercise" is exploring the dictionary, preferably an all Spanish one, just following one word I don't know to another. Reading the examples of usage in context, grabbing a word out of the context sentence and checking that out. It is all about how the words relate to each other. Of course I need a translating dictionary often, but less and less.
I think that the flashcards as an occasional self administered quiz may be useful, especially if you take the time to explore all aspects of the word you don't recognize (note I did not say translate), but it is the exploration and integration with other words that gives the value, not the rote memorization.
Putting stuff into long term memory can be hard work. I have slowly been making my way through a book downloaded from the internet.
I copied the whole thing into a word processor and started reading and marking every new word as I encountered it. I write them down so I see the form of the word and the spelling, if I don't know what they mean, I look them up and write that down, but while looking them up I go on my dictionary excursions; exploring synonyms, conjucations, the various usages not related to the one in the book's context. Sometimes it takes days to cover a page , but it is slowly seeping in. Later when I encounter the word as plural feminine I know them, they are part of a team. And the preterite I read days ago may surface as a subjunctive in dialog. I don't recognize her, but when I check I get another usage anchor.
It gets easier, but it takes years to input a decent vocabulary if you want to communicate about anything. To communicate, the words need to be chained together, the synonyms, the homonyms, the common misspellings that make humorous puns.
That is where the richness of a language lies.
If your major goal is to find the john and the flight home the flashcards may help.
For something like Chinese where there the symbols and sounds seem so far apart, they look like a good way to set those pairs, at least at first, but then I am far from having those first 100 named concepts set in the olde bean. Maybe I'll feel different after I get there.
JP says hand you a can opener . . .
It's like continuing to learn your native language.
There are corners you haven't explored.
I never really knew what it meant to have "too many irons in the fire" until I turned around and watched one of my pieces (with half an hour into it) burn in white hot glory into a twisted cinder of hot slag.
I know now.
donperigo
sí, es una película muy buena y también me alegre que haya al menos una persona contenta en el Gaeltacht.
No diría que yo pudiera hablar bien el irlandés o el chino y tú sabes muy bien que mi nombre no es Paddy ;) Deseo que exista un nombre estereotípico para los ingleses
Cobre
Bien dicho. ¿Cómo tú aprendes los caracteres chinos? Sí, es ingenuo creer que sepamos todas las palabras de nuestra lengua nativa. Por eso, no deberíamos preocuparnos demasiado de no tener un vocabulario perfecto. Siempre habrá huecos. Por ejemplo, yo estaba leyendo una obra de teatro y había muchas nuevas palabras para mí pero cuando las busqué en mi diccionario bilingüe no entendía su significado en inglés.
Me no he estado trabajando muy duro por eso. No tengo tiempo para todos los cosas que me desearía y he divertido mucho aquí y fuera del red. Principalmente escucho a los diálogos en línea y captura de las palabras en contexto. He aumentado el tamaño del texto en firefox, para que los caracteres son más fáciles de leer. Algunos caracteres como caballo, viento, y agua,los me tenía a recogieron, mientras que diseñé algunos azulejos con chorro de arena para algunos amigos japoneses.
Otra vez, imprimía a madera por medio del láser, del dicho chino:
It's funny, I think that translates better to Spanish than it does to English.
I totally agree with JP.
I used to study a lot from books and flashcards, but without constant study I would never remember anything. Now I forgo all that and learn as much as I can from having conversations and listening to as much Spanish as possible. I learn, and retain, so much more that way.
cobre, you asked 'what learning games do you find helpful?'
Well, the ones that I like involve meaning-filled communication. For true newbies, BINGO is good for learning letters and numbers.
Charades is a good one for newbie and elementary learners, depending on the vocab.
For intermediate and advanced learners, I'm a fan of Pictionary (we used to play "insult pictionary" in my class; two teams square off in head-to-head drawing, and the winning team won the right to insult the other team from a pre-written list of insults.) Taboo (great for circumlocution).
¡Muchas gracias por haber respondido a todas mis preguntas! Thanks a lot for having answered all my questions!
Esti: He visto "Obaba" en un cine en mi barrio en Múnich pero no me recordaba de que había rodado en el País Vasco antes de que lo mencionaste. Es una pelicula muy buena con muchas ideas muy interesantes como la costrumbre de contar todo. :) I've seen "Obaba" in a cinema in my quarter in Munich but I didn't remember that it had been filmed in the Basque Country before you mentioned it. It is a very good movie with many very interesting ideas like the habit of counting everything.
JP: I'm glad to see that some things (such as your opinion about flash cards) haven't changed during the last two years! :) Well, I think that it is important to learn some basic vocabulary to be able to communicate. In the words of an English teacher living in Barcelona (from an interview of spanishpodcast):
As you said, flash cards can help to drill words into long-term memory. And in my experience it's much more fun to talk Spanish when I only have to struggle with the grammar but not also with the words at the same time. Thus, as a part of the whole picture, word drills probably have their place (at least for some learners). And if it is only to make the important stuff (like actually communicating) less stressful and less frustrating.
Hola Dubhais!
Estoy bien...y muy ocupada con cosas en casa, como en el jardin y mas...pero no en trabajo donde negocio es despacio.
Me gusta el libro "el principito" porque es un libro de niños y puedo leer facilimente y mi librito de historias cortas. Tambien, me encanta mis dos libros por Marques -Colera y -100 años. Son libros hermosa a tener en el mano, pero lucho leer ellos...hay mucho de nuevo vocabulario para mi. Tengo que usar mi diccionario pequeño... mucho. Pero a mi, esta muy divertido aprender el idioma y tratar leer, asi continúe.
No te preocupes. Deberías empezar a enseñar el español o incluso el inglés. En serio.
De hecho, el coronel mo me costó demasiado leer pero estaba llena de frases difíciles de entender. De verdad, yo debería leerlo otra vez. Tienes razón. Para aprender nuevas palabras y recordarnos de las antiguas, deberíamos seguir leyendo.
Hasta la próxima, russ
If we want to learn to read and write in Spanish, we need to acquire a large vocabulary, much larger than that needed to carry on light conversation in restaurants and airports and social settings. We can increase our vocabulary by reading stories, reading a dictionary, conversing (if we have a conversing partner at hand), or by using paper or electronic flashcards. Flashcards are most useful if we make them ourselves. They are more than just single words, they are notes we write to ourselves, so that we don’t lose the valuable phrases and constructions that we have laboriously collected.
I’ve noticed that SpanishPod has a flashcard program (not a very good one) and you have to pay extra for it. So somebody there must believe in it. My recommendation for the best flashcard program is ANKI, which is free, wonderfully flexible, and frequently updated.
I hate yogurt, but that doesn’t mean that I ought to encourage others to avoid eating this nutritious food that many find enjoyable. Shame on you, J.P. You can like flashcards or not, as you please, but don’t discourage struggling students from using a time-honored method of language-learning.
jeraldina, thanks for your your post.
It's not that I don't like flashcards, it's that I HATE them. On top of that, I think they are a giant waste of the language student's time; the communicative instinct is much more efficient.
SpanishPod's flashcard program was inherited from ChinesePod (along with many other features of this site). It was designed for ChinesePod because flashcards were in line with contemporary Chinese language methodology. I cannot say that it's a part of contemporary Spanish language methodology.
Of course it's a free world, and if flashcards make you feel better, than by all means use them.
I however, will continue to HATE them, and I encourage my classroom students as well as my listeners here not to waste their time. And I'm not ashamed to tell anyone my opinion.
Real conversation and directed reading and listening will get you much, much farther than flashcards ever will.
JP
I do not think that I will could learn a word by hearing once in a conversation. What do you suggest for increasing vocabulary?
JP, thanks for your response. You will continue hating flashcards and I will continue finding them valuable. Everyone else will do as they wish. And that's how it should be.
stevestr,
I'm with you on your last comment. I'm not the kind of person that learns vocabulary that easily. JP, has a talent that not too many people has, he catches new words and retains them very easily. It's obvious that he tries to get involved and surrounded by the language so he gets to uses his new words pretty soon after he listens to them the first time. I saw how JP improved his Chinese everyday at such a fast pace. He has a very good ear and he learns very easily just by listening. Myself, I'm more of a visual person. They can tell me a word 10 times, but if I don't see it written, it'll be almost impossible for me to learn it. I think flashcards can definitely help you review your new vocabulary if you have them at hand and if you are trying to use this new words out in the wild. It works for me in Chinese anyway.
stevestr, I suggest short readings, especially Latin American microcuentos. You can learn dozens of words in a day if you just read for pleasure, in context.
Every day, SAT prep courses are selling students flashcards and word lists to students, saying that they help them raise SAT scores. However, any English teacher worth his/her salt will tell you that if you want to improve your vocab score, you have to read for pleasure... and usually over the course of years.
jeraldina and leoguerrero, I don't feel irresponsible in saying that I HATE flashcards and that I don't recommend them, mostly becuase no one ever believes me. Even my family members and my closest friends will look me straight in the eye and say "I learn differently from you" and then make themselves a set of flashcards.... It doesn't matter to most people that I have a master's degree in foreign language pedagogy, or over a decade of experience in the classroom, or that I have some success in language learning myself. People do what they believe is right.
I, also, have to do what I believe is right, so my message remains unchanged: meaningful conversation and reading (for pleasure) in the target language is by far a better way to aquire vocabulary than any other method; flashcards (which I HATE) pale in comparison.
leoguerrero, we all learned our first languages by instinct (and you, specifically, have learned French and English in the same way). If there is a "talent" for learning languages, we all have it, since we all speak language.
It's true that there are visual learners, auditory learners, and kinesthetic learners. You should know, however, that learning-style theory was developed for academic study, NOT for language acquisition.
So why do some people have a harder time than others learning language? If you ask me, it's not about "talent;" it's about method... it's the way you go about it. For an academic discussion about successfull language learning habits, I recommend Oxford 1989 as a good starting point.
Here's my list of good language learning habits:
One crystal clear case of English bombing was when a kid asked me the meaning of the word, "frenos" from the reading. I hit imaginary brakes with my foot, made a screeching noise. He laughed and said, "brakes?" and I laughed as well, and then playfully repeated my action and sound and said "frenos." He said, "brakes?" and I playfully repeated my action and sound. We repeated this dance ten times, and after the tenth time, I asked him, ok, son, how do you say "brakes" in Spanish?
He looked at me blankly for a moment and then looked down at the word on the page. His finger was still on it. He had to read it again because he had 'bombed' the target word out of his own memory, to the point that he couldn't remember that I had just said the word to him TEN TIMES.
His explanation was "I just needed to know what it MEANS."
Moral of the story: if you need to know the English, you'll learn the English. If you need to know the Spanish, you'll learn the Spanish. He knew exactly what it meant the entire time, what he didn't know was the English. English bombing = bad habit.
________
Ok, so those are a few hints for language learning, off the top of my head. I know that the immediate criticism will be "I don't have the resources to do all those things," in which case flashcards may be better than nothing. Still, they are not part of any pedagogical theory that I ascribe to.
Wow, good post JP.
I do all of those things as much as possible, although I don't put as much emphasis on grammar, and I read as much as I can based on what my available time allows, which is not nearly enough.
It's nice to see that the actions I've been taken based on my own instincts coincide with the advice of an expert!
Thanks, rodneyp, glad to hear it!
I've started a reading club for microcuentos here. If you have time, I hope you'll read and participate in the discussion. If you don't have time now, no problem... that page will be there forever ;) you can pick it up when you get a chance.
I find that a guilty pleasure that helps with learning a lot of words is People en Español. Its all short blurbs, like any grocery counter gossip magazine, all those hair and makeup and diet ads, whose with who, etc. You instinctively know what is being said and can just read it, while looking up a word here or there. It's not great literature or insightful...just kind of telenovela on paper, but it helps me. I find the paper magazine easier than reading on line.
I like the Microcuentos thing!
JP: I was glad to hear you take a strong stand on the Flash Cards. I have a thousand of them in different shoe boxes, and of all my learning tools, the flash cards are the drills I never get to, because they are not fun. They are boring and the boxes take up valuable space. I think I have known "instinctively" that they were not a good use of time, but hearing you confirm this has freed me up to toss them in the recycling bin. I will still need to write down my new words as I am a visual learner, but I write them as a phrase or sentence so they have meaning and I try to use them in my next conversation. Another major time waster in my opinion, is verb drills. I can rhyme off the 14 congegations of all the power verbs at lightnening speed, but can I think of how to say "no lo sabia" in a split second? Nope. I picked Spanish Pod for its contexual teaching because that's what works. Thank you Spanish Pod.
Do we have a problem defining the terms of this debate? When we write down words and phrases that we have heard or read for later study, I believe we are making "FLASHCARDS."
This is what I mean when I use the word "flashcard." I see messages above where a person acknowledges that they do this writing down of words and phrases, but deny using flashcards.
I'm curious. How many SpanishPod users are willing to admit that they write down words and phrases, and then go through them later as an aid to remembering them for use in conversation or reading?
If you are willing to take part in this informal poll, please respond with one of the following messages:
1. Yes, I do this. I believe in using flashcards.
2. Yes, I do this, but I don't think that's the same as using flashcards.
3. No, I would never write down a word or phrase to study later. I hate flashcards.
4. Something else.
Oye Pito,
I like the list above and I think I can safely say I follow the 1st-5 habits as a matter of course. I do struggle with letting go of translating back and forth into english and spanish. That's the hardest habit for me to break. Even when I KNOW I've said or written something correctly, I find myself repeating and checking and looking things up...it drives me nuts. I'm working on speaking like my kids did when learning to talk, just blasting through anyway...even if the words aren't quite right.
That's where I think having some friends that are native speakers and that are willing to use spanish would be a great help. I have a friend here who speaks mexican spanish, but refuses to, even if I or anyone for that matter, says something in Spanish to him. I know he speaks spanish...his mom does with him and he told me himself he does...I don't know why, maybe I just suck at it it... je je, Anyway it drives me crazy. I don't think SW New Hampshire is a hub of latino culture, so I don't run into a lot of people (native speakers) that I can talk to....bummer.
Oh yeah...and just to weigh in, I've tried flashcards and rosetta stone and all that, but I found I just learned to memorize the card or what was coming next on the computer screen and it didn't help me a lot. I find reading and writting everyday helps me obtain and retain more vocabulary and grammer.
I think the actual desire and/or need to communicate with someone in any language is probably the best learning motivator.
Hey Russ,
One way to let go of the translation habit is to use a Spanish/Spanish dictionary, for example Larousse's Diccionario Educativo Juvenil. If you were to look up, say, carroña, you'd find:
Let's say you don't recognize podrida so you look that up. Here's what you find:
And on and on you go.
You may still need to turn to WordReference for less common words or when you can't find the root or dictionary form of the word because you don't recognize the conjugated form (if you don't know that habría comes from haber, for instance)
This fairly inexpensive 700+ page paperback book is available on Amazon. And there's a full color appendix (laminas) illustrating basic science terminology. I absolutely love this book! (When I was in Guatemala, I gave my copy to my teacher because she was intrigued by it as well and wanted to give it to her grandkids.)
Gracias Anna8 por tu sugerencia. Acabo de ordenar este libro de Amazon.
Hey Anna8...Cool, thanks!! What a great idea!
...(minutes later) I just ordered it from amazon...used for $0.01 plus shipping...Awesome...thanks so much for the tip
Jeraldina and Russ, espero que sea útil o por lo menos, divertido!
Flashcards, Hatred, Shame -- not exactly sex, drugs, and rock n' roll but listen...
I'm not sure it's fair to dismiss the Praxis flashcard app. After all, the words are chosen by the student who has first been introduced to them in a meaningful context. We're not talking about a random list of "words you have to know." Now I'm no longer at the point in my Spanish studies where this kind of thing is all that useful to me, but I can tell you that I am really enjoying this new ipod app in Italian. I love being able to polish my pronunciation and spelling while trying to nudge a few words into working memory.
I think it would be even better if the sentence examples were hooked up to the "Flashcard" app (Of course maybe they are and I just don't know how to make it work; I'm kind of a cyberdummy. Pues, ni modo)
Oye, Martinillo, muchísimas gracias por tus preguntas tan interesantes. Te juro, a veces pareces ser el quinto Beatle, es decir la quinta persona en el equipo de Spanishpod;-)
Thanks for all the great posts. I only wish I read it months ago... when I was studying stupid flash cards. There a many, many words I know I knew the flashcard for and couldn't produce when speaking. Now I'm studying in Guatemala... and I've learned more useful things in two weeks of conversation than weeks of drilling with cards.
Thankfully I was also using SpanishPod to warm up for the trip!
Russ, I'm glad to hear some of the more advanced folks mention children's books--my teacher just gave me "El Principito". Now I don't feel nearly as silly reading it!
Yes, I use flashcards, but only when the spirit moves me. I don't really think it is very effective for learning a language, but creating the flashcards may be.
I understand JP's hatred of flashcards. I trust his tutorial in how to learn a new language. In fact, I think this is his departing gift to us; and for this I am extremely grateful. He is telling us to think outside the flashcard, so to speak. Let go of our inhibitions including our native language, listen to the language, speak the language, read the language, be willing to make mistakes in the language, open ourselves in all manners to absorb it, especially conversing in it without translation.
Thank you JP, and thank you to everyone else for your suggestions for studying. I will endeavor to employ all of your suggestions, but with concentration on the JP methodology.
Wow, JP. You make a powerful case against flashcards. And you HATE them, you really do. I was planning on using electronic flashcards, but now I'm not sure anymore.
You always seem to reference traditional cardboard flashcards, but have you checked out some of the more powerful electronic flashcard tools? You can set them up any which way you want them to. From quizzing sentences to fill-in-the-gap type exercises. They also give you the ability to add multimedia to the text, some of them even have thousands of words prerecorded. I was planning on feeding my application with voice samples from SpanishPod to help with pronunciation and example sentences to get context.
Anyhoo. I learned English as a second language in High School. In the 10th grade we started using a "Learner's dictionary" that was monolingual, much like the example anna8 posted about the Spanish/Spanish diccionario. Wow, how I wished we could have used that sooner. It makes so much more sense. Mind you, it's very frustrating at first. Sometimes you had to look up two additional words to find out what the word meant, you were looking up in the first place. But you get used to picking up words like that on the fly. And that's a great way to learn new words. So I definitely recommend getting a Spanish/Spanish dictionary.
A dictionary in the studied language is a MUST. I was lucky enough to land a scholarship to go study in Sweden. The first thing I did when I got there was find a bookstore and buy the best Swedish dictionary I could find. My University only had translating ones.
And the flashcards are fine, not as a memory tool (unless you made them yourself and carefully wrote down the word-phrase-whatever then that exercise was good.) but as a self adminstered randomized test. Go elsewhere and find meaning and internalize it. Donperigo noted that simply and repetitively looking up and filling in blanks, doesn't cut it either. In one eye, out of the fingers and gone. You have to take time and be sure you OWN those words. You don't want to memorize the test, you want to understand the material.
¡Acabo de ordenar Diccionario Educativo Juvenil de Amazon tambien!
Mi español-inglés diccionario se está deshaciendo y creo que estoy listo de graduarme á un diccionario todo en español (ojalá).
Tambien, he apprendido la palabra 'sugerencia' que me gusta mucho ;)
Que quiero decir:
I just ordered Diccionario Educativo Juvenil from Amazon too!
My Spanish-English dictionary is falling apart and I believe I am ready to graduate to an all Spanish dictionary (hopefully).
Also, I have learned the word 'suggestion' which I like a lot ;)
¿Que quire decir la frase 'asking for L1 translation'?
asking you to translate to and from your native (L1) language
English may be the common non spanish interface here but L1 varies from German to Tagalong and on all sides and in between.
Estoy leyendo éstos libros:
Spanish Stories / Cuentos Españoles (A Dual-Language Book)
Stories from Mexico : Historias de Mexico
Stories from Latin America : Historias de Latinoamerica
Éstos han ayudado aumentar mi vocabulario mucho.
Para mi es mucho, mucho más fácile entender español escrito que español hablado.
Mi objectivo último, sin embargo, es hablar con otros.
Gracias, cobre.
If you are a student looking for study techniques, before discarding flashcards consider these.
How to Learn Any Language - Barry Farber. He speaks many languages and uses flashcards as part of his efforts for aquiring language.
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/10000-sentences-how - describes his use of flashcards as part of his study program. He taught himself Japanese in 18 months without taking any classes, while living in Utah and studying Computer Science in university.
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation/Publications/2003%20Effective%20ways.pdf - Paul Nation is a researcher in Second Language Aquisition. Refer to his book (Nation, I.S.P., 2001, Learning Vocabulary in Another Language) for more information.
Hello! I know, I'm late, but there are still some thoughts about flash cards I would like to share. In particular, I would like to list some very basic requirements for successful flash cards usage:
- learn in the direction English to Spanish, i.e., look at the English word or phrase and try to translate it into Spanish. (It's a good idea to start with the direction Spanish to English because it's easier, but that's not enough! If you don't learn from English to Spanish, you are wasting your time.)
- review your flash cards as often as possible; the first review is just as important as the 10th or 20th or 50th review. Review difficult cards more often than easy ones. (If you don't review the cards until you "own" the words or phrases, you are wasting your time.)
- find a comfortable way to learn with flash cards. (In the long run, it's all about motivation. If you don't like doing it, you will stop doing it. And then again: if you don't review the cards sufficiently often, you have wasted your time. My favourite way of learning flash cards is at home in an arm chair with a hot cup of tea using the "iFlash touch" app on my iPod while listening to music. :)
- use different cards at different levels of your learning process: in particular as a beginner you should learn phrases. Once you know several phrases and/or how to build new sentences, you might want to learn more words that you can use as building blocks. (If you just learn single words without a clue how to form sentences, you are wasting your time.)
- And, of course, vary the process and try other learning techniques in order to find out what works best for your.
I guess I agree with JP that it is really easy to waste your time with flash cards; and maybe a lot of users of flash cards are actually wasting their time. However, I'm also convinced that it is possible to use them efficiently.