## Quick Help for the learnfile

### 1. How does it work ?

In his book "how to learn to learn", published in Germany in the 1970s, Sebastian Leitner explained the principle of learning with flashcards. The starting point was the early memory research by Professor Ebbinghaus . He had found that one actually retains only about 20 percent of what you want to learn. The problem was to find out which were learned 20 percent - and what had to be repeated. Flashcards help. They work on the Cinderella principle: "The good into the pot, the bad into the crop." The good are the words that have learned already and the bad are those who need to be repeated again.

flashcards work like this: a word that you know travels from one drawer to the next. Repeated are only the words you did not know. The card box has five compartments of various sizes. This causes the (seemingly) learned to reapear and be checked again in ever-increasing time intervals. Only when a word has passed through the whole card box it's "learned" for sure - that is securely stored in the long-term memory of your brain.

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This program is only the electronic implementation of this principle - as easy as possible. The user interface is designed that as little as possible, keeps you from learning.

### 2. How to learn?

First flashcards (dictionaries) must be created and pairs of words and phrases entered

Then the program asks the vocabulary from there.

### 3. How do I create flashcards (dictionaries )?

Just click on the book icon on the main screen click (or press Ctrl- N). You will see a small dialog in which you enter the name of the new flashcard-file . Confirm with OK. Ready! The name of the new flash card file appears in the list of learning files.

### 4. How to edit flashcard files?

select in the list of "My learnfiles" the name of the flashcard file.

Then click the icon with the sheet and the pencil (or Ctrl -B) . The editing window appears

Write in the left column the english word, sentence or grammar question. In the middle column the foreign language word, sentence or the answer to the grammar question. In the right box "no" is filled in by default; "yes" indicates grammar questions.

At the end of editing clic the "save all changes" button.

### How does the learning query work?

If you have entered at least 30 pairs of words, you can start to learn. Click on one of the two arrows. A information window appears.

After reading the information window, press Enter (or "read" button) .Then appears the query window.

Answer the question and press the "next question" button (or the button "I don't know").

If you want to terminate the query prematurely, the "Cancel questionnaire "button must be clicked.

After 25 questions the information window appears again and tells you how many answers were correct. DONE!

### 5. How do you delete flashcard files

Select the "delete flash cards" menu-entry. After a "Yes" in response to the prompt the flashcard file and all corresponding files will be deleted! This operation can not be undone!