However, it has led to a more refined way of using flash-cards, or any other memorisation system, formal or informal.
What you need to do is expose yourself to the new information quite soon after the first look.
Then you look at it again after a slightly longer interval ... and you keep lengthening the interval , until eventually you only need to look at it occasionally.
Here's what you are doing ...
I used to tell my students to read through their notes when they got home that day .... that way they were doing the first "repetition" in time to stop them forgetting. It's no use chucking their bags/laptops into the corner of their room and not picking it up again until 3 days later when the homework deadline was upon them.
You can organise this sort of spaced repetition for yourself ... you can get software to do it for you ( ANKI is one) ... and in a way, frequent reading is a sort of informal spaced repetition system, because you are constantly noticing words, facts,ideas and bumping that forgetting curve up every time. Plus you are seeing a lot more of the words you need all the time ... rarer words, naturally, crop up less frequently.
also remember ..
[a] it's good to try to create mental images linked to words.
[b] it's good to actually speak the words
[c] even better... make sentences/phrases using the words
[d] use your new words and structures that same day .. and keep using them.
There's loads of stuff about this "spaced repetition" system on the net... what a surprise !
Another surprise ... music .... Huw M I think would be good ... this could be part of a whole series called " Bandstands : their place in Welsh Pop Music" .... anyway, it's Gad y diwrnod wrth y drws.... and I'll tell you something else, there's a hell of a lot of drwsau in Welsh pop music too.
I've got the words somewhere .. I'll put them on here..