Frequently Asked Questions About Sentences

This week, I decided to discuss some of the frequently asked question people send me. Most are sent to me by e-mail, although people use this blog as well (often in posts that are about totally different things). Do you also have a question about Anki or sentences? Ask it in the forum topic!

How do you put sentences into Anki? English-Spanish or Spanish-English?
Personally, I’m at the point I can understand Spanish definitions perfectly, so there’s no need to translate the sentences into (in my case) Dutch.

Would you ever consider adding words?
Pulling words out of their context? VERY dangerous! The power of the sentence method is that you learn vocabulary and grammar the same time. It’s a natural method, more or less like you learned your native tongue (with comprehensible input). So no, I’d never add loose words.

What do your Spanish-Spanish items look like?
It’s really simple. I add the Spanish sentence I want to know to the question field, and the explanation in the answer field. This explanation can consist of some information (in Spanish) about the expression (if it’s an expression). Most of the time, I simply add the definition (in Spanish) to the answer field.

How fast did you go monolingual with sentences?
Not that fast, at about 6 to 7 months, maybe even more. This was mainly because I was too scared and didn’t know how to handle Spanish-Spanish items. I also felt that my level was not high enough to switch to monolingual items. The truth is, however, that it went really fast when I made the transition from Spanish-Dutch to Spanish-Spanish sentences. So just do it.

Should you review your sentences every day?
YES! Don’t skip days! It’s for your own sake…

What’s the process you go through before adding a sentence?
1. I see a word/expression/sentence I want to learn and don’t know (well) yet.
2. I look up all the words I don’t know in my monolingual dictionary and only use a Spanish-Dutch or Spanish-English dictionary when I really don’t understand the definition. When I only saw a word I want to remember, I look up a sentence with it. Can’t find a sentence? No new item then.
3. I put the sentence in the question field and write/copy-paste (from the dictionary) the explanation.
4. I memorize the sentence in the question-field and try to understand every part of it, so that it’s in my short-term memory.
5. I add the item.
6. After a few hours I start reviewing the newly added items.

How do you review the sentences?
1. I see the sentence and read it carefully.
2. I say the sentence out loud. Carefully, not making mistakes (or keeping it to a minimum) in a pace I feel good saying it.
3. I read the sentence again, trying to understand every part of it.
4. I click “show answer” and check if my answers were correct.
5. I grade myself.