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I'd like an Anki cloze card design to learn verb conjugations where I have multiple card fields for:

  • Infinitive
  • Root
  • Suffix: Singular 1st person
  • Suffix: Singular 2nd familiar person
  • Suffix: Singular 3rd person
  • Suffix: Plural 1st person
  • Suffix: Plural/formal 2nd person
  • Suffix: Plural 3rd person

Each card would show the infinitive and a table with each of the 6 present tense forms. Cloze deletion would blank one complete word at a time. One complete word is composed of the root followed by the proper suffix.

I can create these cards if I just create a table and type all the whole words for every verb of interest, but it would be convenient if I could create new cards for different verbs of the same form by just changing the infinitive and the root.

I can't seem to create a cloze deletion composed of more than one field. For example, {{c1::{{root}}{{sing1st}}}} doesn't work.

Is there a way to accomplish this?

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  • Tangentially (and anecdotally), I've discovered that I learn conjugations, etc. better by just seeing the forms used in context rather than memorizing or filling out tables. Sure, I'd memorize the tables for starters, but I've found it more effective (for me) to get used to the conjugations just by experiencing L2 material that uses them.
    – Hatchet
    Jun 5, 2019 at 2:35
  • @Hatchet Could you ask a question about that, and perhaps self-answer it?
    – Tommi
    Jun 5, 2019 at 5:30
  • @Hatchet I think you are probably right about long-term effectiveness. At the moment, I have lots that needs to be recalled for tests and little time to study. Rather than just reviewing tables of conjugations and lists of rules, even a minimal cloze deletion where I'm forced to recall something is better for me. Eventually I want to actually use all these forms in practice, but for now I need to start filling my relatively empty bucket.
    – rickhg12hs
    Jun 5, 2019 at 5:47
  • @TommiBrander I think these three questions are pretty good, unless you are thinking I should ask one specifically about conjugations/grammar.
    – Hatchet
    Jun 5, 2019 at 6:16
  • If I understand your question correctly, you are not looking for a description of how to create cloze tests for a single verb but for multiple verbs at once. (Creating cloze deletions for a single verb is easy, as long as you don't mind displaying the other verb forms that are not being tested.)
    – Tsundoku ♦
    Jun 6, 2019 at 13:48

1 Answer 1

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The Anki documentation points out that overlapping (or nested) cloze deletions such as {{c1::Canberra was {{c2::founded}}}} in 1913 are not supported.

The simplest way to create conjugation cloze tests for a single verb (and tense) is to copy the forms from one of the many conjugation websites and then convert them into cloze deletions. Since the "Text" field in a cloze card can contain multiple lines, this is easy to do.

For example, you start with the form for the Spanish verb "tener" (simple present), copied from a conjugation website:

Anki's Add card dialog with the six forms of tener in the simple present

Then, one by one, you transform these verb forms into cloze deletions by selecting each form and clicking on the [...] button:

The same dialog as before, but now with one verb form converted into a cloze test

When you're done, each of the cloze deletion fields has a different identifier, namely c1 to c6: The same dialog as above, but now with all verb forms converted into cloze deletions

This results into six cards, one for each form, so when you start reviewing the verb "tener", all forms will be visible, except for the one being tested by the current card:

Review dialog with all the simple present verb forms of 'tener', except for the first person singular, where a cloze deletion is visible

I am not aware of a mechanism to automate this, except if the verb conjugations are available in a machine readable format that can be converted into the text/HTML format that can be converted into Anki.

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  • This is a great description of how to create the Anki cards in the usual way. I mention in the original post that I know how to do this. My question specifically asks for a way to create a cloze deletion where more than one field is taken as a composite ({{c1::{{root}}{{sing1st}}}}), not nested.
    – rickhg12hs
    Jun 8, 2019 at 6:53

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