Comments on: SRS Practices: I Have an SRS, Now What?

By: Alexei Vinidiktov

Alexei Vinidiktov — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:33:17 +0000

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
…

By: Ramses

Ramses — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:04:29 +0000

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.

By: Alexei Vinidiktov

Alexei Vinidiktov — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:56:44 +0000

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.

By: Ramses

Ramses — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:35:00 +0000

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.

By: David

David — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:50:52 +0000

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.