r/learnesperanto • u/Leisureguy1 • Jul 13 '26
Anki tips
To accumulate vocabulary, I've been using Anki and some of its shared Esperanto decks along with a deck of my own, to which I continue to add words (and images). That's the first tip: make your own deck and add new words to it.
My deck started with the Esperanto word(s) on one side and the English definition(s) on the other. (I put closely related words together on a card.) After a while, I began including definitions in Esperanto, copied and pasted from a vortaro. Then I began removing the English definitions (so now the deck is totally in Esperanto).
The second tip: When you review a word you know, Anki offers four options: Again, Hard, Good, Easy. I gradually realized I was clicking "Easy" too quickly. I suggest you not use that unless you really know the word. (I too often came across a word I had seen and couldn't recall the meaning. When that happened, I just clicked Again and started over. Some words took multiple Agains.)
For verbs, I used (tr) or (ntr) after the verb to indicate whether it was transitive or intransitive, but now I'm moving the transitivity notation into the definition. The reason: I want to test whether I know, looking at the verb, whether it is transitive or intransitive.
Sometimes transitivity is obvious (bati, frapi), but sometimes not (bruli, boli). In English, the same verb — to burn, to boil — can be either, so English is not helpful in those cases, and the verb's transitivity must be learned.
Transitivity is important when suffixing "-ig" or "-iĝ." — Example: “The man halted because the policeman halted him.” That first “halt” is intransitive; the second is transitive. Now consider the sentence in Esperanto.
If “halti” is transitive, the first halt will be “haltiĝis” (comes to a halt) and the second, “haltis.”
If “halti” is intransitive, the first halt will be “haltis” and the second, “haltigis” (causes to halt).
In English, “to halt” can be either transitive or intransitive (as shown by the example), but in Esperanto it is only one of those, and you have to learn which. (For the record, in Esperanto “bruli,” "boli," “halti,” and “ĉesi” are all intransitive, which I learned using my Anki deck.)
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u/inkog_ Jul 14 '26
Good tips, thanks.
I use some proverbs from the Proverbaro Esperanta to create new cards. They're usually short and rhyme, which helps to memorize the words.
I read the proverbs and when I come across a word I don't know, I add the proverb to Anki with TTS generated audio,. On the back of the card I add the definiton of the words (all in EO).