How to Approach Learning Verb Conjugations

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FeoGringo
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How to Approach Learning Verb Conjugations

Postby FeoGringo » Mon Jul 05, 2021 1:56 pm

I am a beginner Spanish learner and after over a year of haphazard studying I have finally decided I need to put some focus on learning verb conjugations. The only memories of having learned verb conjugations in the past was high school French, looking at tables (je, tu vous, nous). It always seemed very inefficient in terms of language production and really having the correct conjugations at your fingertips. I stumbled upon this quote (from a website for a guy who created a very extensive Spanish Conjugation Anki Deck) and it struck a chord with me:

From learning to conjugate German — and Spanish without the benefit of this deck — what I observed is that when I used a book to review conjugations, each tense became a sort of "song" or "nursery rhyme". For instance, for haber, I would end up memorizing the present tense as this "song": He, has, ha. Hemos, habéis, han.

The result was that when I would need to produce the words "they have", I would find myself mentally repeating that little song until getting to han. Obviously, this is not optimal. What you want is direct, random access to conjugated verbs.


So my questions are:
1) What is the best way for "direct, random access to conjugated verbs"?
2) What is everyone's preferred method to tackle verb conjugations?
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Re: How to Approach Learning Verb Conjugations

Postby 白田龍 » Mon Jul 05, 2021 3:48 pm

I'm inclined to sell the passive first approach. Leave it till after you can read books and understand spoken speech without much trouble. It will still have its difficulties, but it will be way easier.
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Re: How to Approach Learning Verb Conjugations

Postby smallwhite » Mon Jul 05, 2021 4:10 pm

FeoGringo wrote:So my questions are:
1) What is the best way for "direct, random access to conjugated verbs"?
2) What is everyone's preferred method to tackle verb conjugations?


3. I love drilling verb conjugations because it takes so little time yet gives you so much fluidity and confidence and buys you time as you worry about the rest of the sentence. My father said his poor English completely turned around when he got a tutor who made him drill conjugations.

4. And after the beginner stage, I use new verbs to drill conjugations so I'm killing 2 birds with 1 stone.
Q: "to unravel"
A: "deshilacho, deshilachas, deshilacha, deshilachamos..."

2. I do a variety of drilling.
2a. With a 501-verb book (where the order is rather fixed);
2b. Drill books like Schaum's Grammar (my favorite because the verbs are easy and the sentences are short, achieving a repeated-drill-cram effect, rather than how long sentences asking for difficult verbs would achieve a test-your-knowledge effect instead);
2c. The occasional exercise book with long sentences asking for difficult verbs to test my knowledge;
2d. Jot down a few verbs' conjugations on a piece of paper before going out, and just do the standard "I run, you run, he runs" chant as I walk, referring back to the piece of paper when I'm unsure;
2e. When even Schaum's is too long-winded, I summarise its questions into verb phrases "to read a book, to leave tomorrow" and mass conjugate them in all different ways, eg. "I am reading a book, I am leaving tomorrow" then "She reads a book, She leaves tomorrow" then "They didn't read a book, They didn't leave tomorrow"... which I contribute my overall oral fluency to;
2f. Randomised flashcard asking "he thinks" and me answering "pensa" orally or by typing.

1. I believe the best way is to drill in a variety of ways as above.
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Re: How to Approach Learning Verb Conjugations

Postby sirgregory » Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:31 am

The website verbix.com will give you every form of a verb in every tense/mood all on one page. This is good for reference and for getting a high-level understanding of the verbal system. Romance languages have a huge number of inflections which can appear overwhelming. But thankfully most of it follows regular patterns so it's not as bad as it looks. They also sell verb books like Barron's 501 Spanish Verbs which are like a printed version of what you see on Verbix. The front of the Barron's book also has a concise and helpful explanation of every tense/mood in Spanish.

https://www.verbix.com/webverbix/Spanish/comer.html

Something like the above is good for reference, but I don't like those tables for actually learning conjugations. It's too much data all at once, and the underlying rules aren't that apparent. I prefer to go through each tense one at a time and learn the the regular rules/endings, then go over the irregulars, then repeat for all other tenses/moods. As you are probably already aware, Spanish has -ar, -er, and -ir verbs. The first thing is to learn the standard endings in the present tense for each verb type. I would recommend making yourself cheat sheets with all the standard endings to use as a reference as you study (reading, translation exercises, whatever). You can print these off the internet or look at a book but I think it's better to write it out yourself. Look at them as needed. Over time you will find yourself looking at the cheat sheets less and less until eventually you won't need them at all.

After learning the regular endings, you'll want to get lists of the irregular verbs. In Spanish there are a good number of irregulars in the present tense, especially the first-person singular. Often there are patterns with these, e.g., tengo, vengo, pongo, salgo, traigo, caigo, hago, oigo, digo. Or doy, voy, estoy. There are also some "stem-changers." Examples: 1) (o to ue) puede, duele, vuelve, 2) (e to ie) siente, piensa, tiene, 3) (e to i) pide, sirve, sigue, etc. Rather than try to memorize all of them I would start out learning a handful of the most important verbs from each group. After a little while you'll start getting a feel for these irregularities (which often have a phonetic rationale).

The preterite has some irregulars like quiso, tuvo, pudo, estuvo, anduvo, dijo, trajo, etc which you will have to learn. Don't sweat it if everything doesn't stick immediately. Do your best to learn with lists and a few example sentences/exercises and then let yourself come across these forms over and over in context. Eventually these forms will start to feel natural. The key is you want balance between deliberate study of the rules and learning through input with context. Do both and they will reinforce each other.

The imperfect, future, and conditional are easy. For the imperfect, there are something like three irregulars and they are common verbs. A handful of verbs have an irregular stem in the future and conditional (e.g., saldr-, tendr-), so these two are pretty easy and you can learn both of them together.

The irregularities with the subjunctive follow the irregularities from the present tense (e.g. tenga) and the preterite (tuviera). So once you've learned the present and preterite irregular forms the subjunctive forms are easy. Many of the imperative forms follow the subjunctive forms (except tu and vosotros which have different rules but which are also easy).

For the perfect tenses ("I have seen," "I had seen") you just take a form of haber (to have) and pair it with the past participle. There are a few irregular past participles to worry about (hecho, dicho, muerto, escrito, vuelto, puesto, etc), but it isn't a huge list. Present participles (e.g., comiendo) are not bad either with only a few minor irregularities.

Really, you've got a fair number of irregular verbs in the present and preterite tenses to deal with, but once you've learned those two tenses you will have gotten over the hump. The subjunctive is notoriously tricky, but the difficulty is one of usage, not conjugation.

Once you "know" all the forms, there's also the matter of developing fluency. This is all about getting lots and lots of practice, including speaking. Not only that, it has to be maintained. It's also good to review the basic rules periodically to catch whatever points you might have missed with previous passes.
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Re: How to Approach Learning Verb Conjugations

Postby rpg » Tue Jul 06, 2021 9:38 am

I agree with the quote in the OP. I don't believe in tables or chants as ways of chunking verb conjugations in your memory. I refuse to do these kinds of drills and respectfully disagree with anyone who would suggest them, including my own Spanish teachers when I was in school. You want to be able to produce these verb forms in isolation, not as part of an arbitrary sequence.

I think practice should mimic performance. You will get good at conjugating verbs on the fly by simply doing it a lot. I know that doesn't sound very helpful, but I think you need to simply form a lot of sentences and hear a lot of sentences. Your brain will sort it all out with enough practice.

The approach is not "perform this arbitrary memorization exercise in isolation repeatedly until mastery, and then expect perfection in actual linguistic tasks" but rather "keep performing linguistic tasks until mastery". The way you get good at it is by doing it, and if you're not good at it that just means you need to do it more, not that you need to stop everything and do something else.
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Re: How to Approach Learning Verb Conjugations

Postby smallwhite » Tue Jul 06, 2021 10:24 am

a guy wrote:... I would end up memorizing the present tense as this "song": He, has, ha. Hemos, habéis, han.

The result was that when I would need to produce the words "they have", I would find myself mentally repeating that little song until getting to han.

Only spend 1/6 of your chanting time starting from I have, then, and
1/6 going You have, He has, We have, Yous have, They have, I have,
1/6 going He has, We have, Yous have, They have, I have, You have,
1/6 going We have, Yous have, They have, I have, You have, He has,
1/6 going Yous have, They have, I have, You have, He has, We have,
1/6 going They have, I have, You have, He has, We have, Yous have.

When you're practising a song on an instrument you're not supposed to start from the beginning every time you practise either.

> 3. I love drilling verb conjugations because

And I don't want my conversation with a native/interviewer/examiner to be the first time I ever say a certain verb in a certain tense. I want to have said them all before (safely) in my own time and to have practised tongue-twisters like alabábamos beforehand.
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Re: How to Approach Learning Verb Conjugations

Postby blackcoffee » Tue Jul 06, 2021 11:07 am

FeoGringo wrote:I am a beginner Spanish learner and after over a year of haphazard studying I have finally decided I need to put some focus on learning verb conjugations. The only memories of having learned verb conjugations in the past was high school French, looking at tables (je, tu vous, nous). It always seemed very inefficient in terms of language production and really having the correct conjugations at your fingertips. I stumbled upon this quote (from a website for a guy who created a very extensive Spanish Conjugation Anki Deck) and it struck a chord with me:

From learning to conjugate German — and Spanish without the benefit of this deck — what I observed is that when I used a book to review conjugations, each tense became a sort of "song" or "nursery rhyme". For instance, for haber, I would end up memorizing the present tense as this "song": He, has, ha. Hemos, habéis, han.

The result was that when I would need to produce the words "they have", I would find myself mentally repeating that little song until getting to han. Obviously, this is not optimal. What you want is direct, random access to conjugated verbs.


So my questions are:
1) What is the best way for "direct, random access to conjugated verbs"?
2) What is everyone's preferred method to tackle verb conjugations?


Do you mean in addition to working with this anki deck or are you looking for some other ways of developing this random access to verb forms?

I've been spending about 10 minutes a day on this particular deck for a few months and think it is excellent. I can't think of a better way to achieve that "direct, random access." I also use an app that makes me type out random verb forms. I have no idea how this will translate to actually producing the right form when speaking because I've done almost none of that so far. But even with reading and listening I feel like I'm processing the verbs faster and more accurately.
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Re: How to Approach Learning Verb Conjugations

Postby FeoGringo » Tue Jul 06, 2021 11:53 am

blackcoffee wrote:
FeoGringo wrote:I am a beginner Spanish learner and after over a year of haphazard studying I have finally decided I need to put some focus on learning verb conjugations. The only memories of having learned verb conjugations in the past was high school French, looking at tables (je, tu vous, nous). It always seemed very inefficient in terms of language production and really having the correct conjugations at your fingertips. I stumbled upon this quote (from a website for a guy who created a very extensive Spanish Conjugation Anki Deck) and it struck a chord with me:

From learning to conjugate German — and Spanish without the benefit of this deck — what I observed is that when I used a book to review conjugations, each tense became a sort of "song" or "nursery rhyme". For instance, for haber, I would end up memorizing the present tense as this "song": He, has, ha. Hemos, habéis, han.

The result was that when I would need to produce the words "they have", I would find myself mentally repeating that little song until getting to han. Obviously, this is not optimal. What you want is direct, random access to conjugated verbs.


So my questions are:
1) What is the best way for "direct, random access to conjugated verbs"?
2) What is everyone's preferred method to tackle verb conjugations?


Do you mean in addition to working with this anki deck or are you looking for some other ways of developing this random access to verb forms?

I've been spending about 10 minutes a day on this particular deck for a few months and think it is excellent. I can't think of a better way to achieve that "direct, random access." I also use an app that makes me type out random verb forms. I have no idea how this will translate to actually producing the right form when speaking because I've done almost none of that so far. But even with reading and listening I feel like I'm processing the verbs faster and more accurately.


I'd like to try this deck but the prompts being in Spanish are an obstacle for me (although luke reminded me there are visual cues as well). But yes, I was looking for additional options besides the deck.
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Re: How to Approach Learning Verb Conjugations

Postby s_allard » Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:05 pm

rpg wrote:I agree with the quote in the OP. I don't believe in tables or chants as ways of chunking verb conjugations in your memory. I refuse to do these kinds of drills and respectfully disagree with anyone who would suggest them, including my own Spanish teachers when I was in school. You want to be able to produce these verb forms in isolation, not as part of an arbitrary sequence.

I think practice should mimic performance. You will get good at conjugating verbs on the fly by simply doing it a lot. I know that doesn't sound very helpful, but I think you need to simply form a lot of sentences and hear a lot of sentences. Your brain will sort it all out with enough practice.

The approach is not "perform this arbitrary memorization exercise in isolation repeatedly until mastery, and then expect perfection in actual linguistic tasks" but rather "keep performing linguistic tasks until mastery". The way you get good at it is by doing it, and if you're not good at it that just means you need to do it more, not that you need to stop everything and do something else.


I really agree with this post. I'm not against drilling verb forms per se. But we have to keep in mind that the ultimate goal is to be able to use the various forms spontaneously and correctly. This means using a right verb with the right meaning for the context.

Specifically, this means always learn the verb forms in context such as in sample sentences and not as just as entries in verb tables to be memorized. Those verb conjugation books, in my opinion, are mostly for reference purposes and are should not be memorized.

There are a couple of facts about verbs that should be kept in mind. I'll refer specifically to French but this applies to Spanish and German that I know and probably to most languages mutatis mutandi. French has around 12000 verbs divided into three or four morphological classes plus a group of irregular verbs. Of these 12000 verbs, around 10 probably represent around 50% of all verb occurrences in everyday casual speech. This also means that these very common verbs are used in many contexts and have many different meanings.

It is also very important to keep in mind when looking at conjugation tables that only certain tenses / moods and forms are commonly used. Unfortunately, those conjugation tables give all the forms the same weighting and no indication of actual use. This is totally wrong. When I look at a conjugation table for a French verb like être "to be", I say that most people will productively use less than 10% of those forms and some more receptively. So, it's good to look at these tables to get a sense of what the forms look like, but I wouldn't attempt to memorize the contents.

Now, how do you go about learning to master the necessary forms? My own approach is basically repetitive exposure to authentic graded materials. This means tons of listening with transcripts, reading and actual speaking where possible. All with corrective feedback if available.
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Re: How to Approach Learning Verb Conjugations

Postby jeffers » Tue Jul 06, 2021 12:49 pm

blackcoffee wrote:[I also use an app that makes me type out random verb forms.


What app are you using? And what languages are available to practice with it?

Edit: I did a search for verb drills, and found a pretty good website which is currently free while it's in beta. https://www.linguno.com/ The beta will end sometime in the second half of 2021 (so soon), but they haven't yet said what the business model will be. You can choose a CEFR level, or customize your lesson. I gave it a set of verbs I've had issues with in Kwiziq.

A session is made up of 10 cloze cards, with the verb being the word to fill in. Accents are available using the keyboard. After you submit your answer you can view the verb table. Any sentance can be playet out loud. At the end of the session it gives you any words you missed to try again. So far I'm really liking this, but I've only tried it a bit.

It has other things than just verb exercises, but I've not checked them out yet. Languages are English, German, Italian, Portuguese (Br or Eu), Spanish.

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