Decks: A deck that’s part of your week

Vocabulary decks are folders. A “stack of words” is what’s due today, no matter which folder it’s in. I confused the two and ended up maintaining twelve decks without realizing it. Flashcards in DeutschSprechen don’t need much organization. They need an example sentence and some space. SRS retrieves them—once a day, three times, seven times, thirty times, ninety times. The folder is just the drawer.

One deck for work. One for the everyday life you actually live. Any more than that becomes a hassle.

What Belongs in a Deck

Words you’ll need within the same hour: caregiving, cooking, the train, government offices. Don’t use “Level B1” as a category, because language levels don’t follow your work schedule. The example sentence comes from that very hour. “The shift starts at six.” Not a definition. If the sentence is too long, shorten it before you file it away.

First, check if the app already has the sentence. Over five thousand example sentences are available. Create your own cards to fill in the gaps. I no longer fill vocabulary decks with copied lists from other sources. I’ve deleted those and forgotten about them.

What I Don’t Create

One deck per grammar chapter. One “important” deck. One “later” deck. “Later” isn’t a review interval. What’s important is the word you paraphrased this week. Three new cards a day, only if the widget shows fewer than five due. Otherwise, no new ones—in any deck. The stack of due cards takes priority. Otherwise, you’ll create mental pigeonholes and leave the open cards lying around.

In the Evening, Focus on the Number, Not the Deck

The widget shows due reviews, not “today’s deck maintenance.” You take eight due cards, from whichever deck. Say two of them out loud. Swipe: try again or I know it. I only know it after the sentence. Words you know can go into the archive so they don’t clutter the stack. The deck stays. The card just isn’t in the way anymore.

If you haven’t touched a deck for weeks, it’s either finished or it was never yours to begin with. Archive or delete what you wouldn’t say. Don’t keep it out of a sense of obligation.

The overview: Decks. How to create your own cards: your sentence.

Two Drawers Are Enough

Vocabulary decks are useful when you know in ten seconds where a new word belongs—work or everyday life. Flashcards that you have to sort first are too late. A pile of words just becomes the task left for the evening. The folder is secondary. Eight cards. Two out loud. Close.

I name the decks after the location, not the level. “Shift,” not “B1 Verbs.” On the train, I then know which word belongs where without even thinking. A third deck only if a third location really comes up every week—the government office, for example—and the sentences can’t be mixed into everyday life. Otherwise, I stick to two. New cards go into the drawer the same day, along with the sentence you said. In the evening, it’s not the drawer that counts. What counts is what’s due. The widget doesn’t know your folders. It knows the number. The number is the better plan. I once had twelve decks. I could recite them by heart but not a single sentence from them. Since I’ve been down to two drawers, my mouth has been louder. That’s the only comparison that interests me. Eight cards due today, no matter which drawer they’re from. Two out loud. If the widget shows over twenty, don’t create a new deck and don’t add new cards. Tidying up then means saying “eight,” not opening a third drawer. Vocabulary decks stay at two. The word stack is for the evening. Tomorrow, focus on the number again, not the folders. Say one sentence from the stack out loud before you even open the drawer. Two drawers. Eight cards. That’s it. The third drawer stays closed.

DeutschSprechen helps you organize. It doesn’t insist on it. The sentence in the word stack counts, not the number of vocabulary decks.