In the last post I pointed out why I think using a Spaced Repetition System is a good thing to do, and what SRSs there are around. Now that you’ve set up the program of your choice you’re probably wondering; “now what?“. In this post I’ll try to point out what the possibilities are (and what I think you should do – you’re always free to come up with your own formula (if you do, please share this in the comments)).
First of all, I’m a hardcore user of Anki (without doubt the most popular SRS today). And there’s a good reason I use it. Not only is Damien (the creator of the program) working on it actively, it also has MANY features I use daily. One of main features I use the most is the sound option. It’s just very easy to add audio to an item, which greatly improves your listening comprehension in the long run.
Tip: In the past I used the free FSI course to collect sentences from. To get the audio from the files I’d use Audacity (free software) to select the sentence in question and save it as mp3 file (be sure to download the mp3 codec from the internet – google for it). Then I’d simply type in the sentence in the question field and add the audio for the sentence (or only add the audio so that I had to transcribe the sentence, which makes things more difficult but more fun as well).
In my opinion, the only right way to use an SRS is to only add sentences. Next to that I’m only going for the direction Spanish -> English (Spanish sentence on front, English on the answer side) or Spanish -> Spanish (explanation of the sentence in Spanish on the answer side).
I never go English -> Spanish. Why not? There are simply too many ways of translating an English sentence into Spanish, and in the beginning you’re bound to make mistakes (which is bad, because these errors will ingrain). The goal of doing SRS repetitions is getting comprehensible input, so Spanish -> English will do the trick (and also makes life easier, believe me).
So, why do I only add full sentences? First of all; learning single vocubulary items results in rote-memorizing because there’s no context provided. Second of all; by seeing sentences you’re not only learning new words and expressions but are also learning to use the grammar without even knowing it! Sounds simple, right?
The main problem, however, is that is can be a bit tricky to find good sentences that are both fun and practical (in other words: teaching you both vocabulary and grammar).
You should always keep in mind that it’s not a case of collecting thousands of random sentences. You sure want to have many sentences at some time, but you have to be sure that it are sentences you want to learn and that are useful to you at this moment. Re-read that last sentence and memorize it.
Some ways of collecting sentences are using courses (like the earlier mentioned FSI course) and grammar books. I also recommend using cheap phrase books (in terms of price, mostly the quality is very high) to get sentences.
In a follow-up post I’ll cover some great sources for sentences (one of which is produced by me).
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!Related Posts:
SRS Practices: What’s an SRS?
SRS Practices: Writing Down Your Sentences
Question: What are you willing to pay for the sentence DB?
What Sentences Do I Add To My SRS?
Adding Audio to Anki Made Easy
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I really like the idea of writing out complete sentences, in Spanish, versus only single vocabulary. I tried the latter (just single words) and found it to be boring, which meant I was finding excuses not to review. I guess the only part I might worry about for myself is memorizing only one way to say something, but I can overcome this, I think, by writing the same meaning of the sentence but in different forms, in the same way that people speak differently.
What I normally do is (when I see a word I want to learn) looking more than one sentence for that word and make several items. What I do even more is adding addition sentences in the answer field, for example when the word can be used in several ways but that the meaning is very similar in those contexts.
Learning sentences is undoubtedly way better than learning single vocab items, but if you want to learn vocabulary in context sans redundancy of full sentences, you can learn word combination instead of sentences. They provide all the grammar and context infromation necessary for using the vocabulary being learned. They are also shorter, which makes them quicker to add to your SRS.
For some vocabulary items it is not possible to form word combinations, in such cases short sentences come to the rescue.
I wish there were a large database of word combinations for Spanish words which could be used in an SRS. It could be useful for most learners of Spanish.
What do you mean with word combination? Without stringing them together in a logical way (also called a “sentence”), it will just confuse you. I agree short sentences are great, as I use them for vocabulary items as well (yes, I have vocubulary and grammar items; both are sentences but each has a feature (vocab or grammar) I want to understand better).
Can you give an example in Spanish what you mean?
About the sentences; I’m busy creating a sentence database, but need some weeks to get it to a serious size before making it live.
Examples of word combinations:
aprender un idioma, pasar tres dias, por el camino, trabajar en una empresa, levantarse temprano, tomar el desayuno, visitar una ciudad, comprar una camisa, ir lentamente, gran amor, ir al cine, …
A sentence can usually be split into one or several word combinations:
Aprendo el español – > aprender el español,
He pasado tres dias en España -> pasar tres dias, pasar (tiempo) en España
Has tomado el desayuno? -> tomar el desayuno,
Voy a visitar esta cuidad con mi amigo Miguel -> visitar una cuidad, con un amigo
…