How to make the most of flashcards

Flashcards or Flash Cards came up and down a long time ago. Though lots of language learners still count great respect for flashcards as an incredible impact on the language learning experience, people just think of flashcards , still you can hardly find any of those learners using flashcards regularly, or even at all.
Though flashcards are not really dead, they lost their importance to people's learning experience with today's world of iPods and visualization. Computer's other methods pushed flashcards aside.
But still flashcards are a wonderful way to learn vocabulary painlessly. Just if you know how fun they can be when you play them with other language partners, you would actually get addicted to them. I would like to share two methods or ways that I use flashcards with.
First method:
- Make some flashcards (make them in even numbers if you are playing this with 2, 4, 6 etc partners)
- Put them all above each other in random order.
- One of you should start picking one card, read it in the target language, then say out loud the English translation (assuming that you are English speakers)
- If the player guessed the meaning correctly, he would keep the card to the end of the game.
- If the player doesn't guess it correctly, he should leave the card at the bottom of the cards.
- The rest of the players do the same still all cards are out.
- Each player's cards get counted, and the score would be written down.
I have been trying this with my nephew and nieces, (after they got really bored and disappointed with Rosetta Stone and stared hating the Japanese language) I started playing flashcards this way in Japanese (The kids are 4, 6 and 9 years old) Surprisingly, the 6 year-old girl is the one who been keeping the highest score for like 5 months now, we keep the scores' record and we add up the new score every time we play, the kids find it MUCH fun that they even ask like everyday to play it.
Second method:
Now the second method is not really a method, it's a computer software called BYKI (Before You Know It) And just like the name says it, you really learn so many words so fast and painlessly.
Though the program is free, and it got tons of words list made by the online community. You actually have to make a paid upgrade to be able to create your own words list. However, if you need to make a BYKI words list, just send it to me and I will create it for you for free, I had my hard time too before I could upgrade.