3 Anki Decks to Improve Your Spanish
If you have not heard of Anki yet, it is never too late to learn about it! Anki is a studying resource which utilizes spaced repetition in the form of flashcard decks so that you can learn and memorize information. This method alleviates the forgetting curve that happens after you learn something new. I like to use other decks created by other people so that I can focus on learning the material. Additionally, I can add or remove cards whenever I find it necessary so that I can personalize the deck to suit my needs.
I have an alarm set to ring at 10:30 in the evening because that is when I have already completed any tasks for the day. I also tend to study better during the afternoon/evening because I tried being a morning person, and after so many years of attempts, I gave up on that dream and settled on later study hours. It also works better with my work schedule as well. All in all, I recommend getting to know yourself a bit better in terms of study habits so that you have a better idea of what time of day is most reasonable to dedicate time to go through these flashcards.
Before you download these decks, I recommend you download the Anki app on your desktop first.
1. Ultimate Spanish Conjugation
This has got to be the best resource I have found on the website because it will teach you the conjugations for 72 selected verbs in the Spanish language. Learning nouns is relatively easy because you can always ask what something is. However, learning the verbs to actually do something with those nouns will help tremendously on your language learning journey. It also gives you the context of time and mood of a sentence and tells you which verbs go with which nouns. I love this deck because it also gives you a template on how and when to use these conjugations so that you can make your own sentences with more confidence. If you are not going to use the rest of the decks listed here, this deck will be hands down the one that you have to have in your toolkit.
2. Medical Spanish
You do not have to be a medical professional to learn medical Spanish. Although this deck is targeted towards medical terminology, the vocabulary can definitely help you out in case you need detailed information about a situation. If you are traveling to a Spanish-speaking country, and an emergency arises, you do not want to fumble around with your words because you want to get help as soon as you can. Additionally, I did not expect vocabulary about family relatives when I was using this deck, and I definitely know a lot more about how to refer to a certain person without being cumbersome. Just like in English, instead of saying el hermano de su esposa (i.e., the brother of your wife), I can just say el cuñado (i.e., brother-in-law), and you will immediately know who I am talking about. Unfortunately, violence exists everywhere, and I would rather you have enough vocabulary to know as much as possible so that you are not left too lost and confused.
3. 1001 High Intermediate Spanish Words and Sentences
My last step is vocabulary building for useful situations other than medical emergencies. If you need to work on your pronunciation and/or your listening comprehension, this deck has audio files that come along with each card so you know how to pronounce sentences like a native. The creators have created a host of sentences where you translate from English to Spanish and vice versa. It is important to take your time thinking about the translations because this type of active learning trains your brain to really think about the language. This process not only helps me build vocabulary, but encourages schemas about word associations and their frequencies with one another.
To review you can get these decks via these links:
In the options to the right of each deck within the Anki app, I recommend setting “New cards/day” to 10 cards/day so that you are not overwhelmed and are able to do this task daily. The goal here is consistency because although learning Spanish is a marathon, you do not want to take too many water breaks where you are too full to keep going. I hope these Anki decks add some value to your Spanish learning and offer a variety of content to improve your language competence.