Update: Learning 1,000 Sentences of Italian

This post is an update on my mission to commit fully to learning Italian using the 1,000 sentences technique, detailed in my blog post here.

To summarise it, the core of the method is this: Spend your time learning a very large number of target-language flashcard sentences first. These sentences will enable you to understand and use the grammar and phrasing of your target language and learn it at a much faster pace.

This does not mean doing flashcards at the expense of all other activities. The 1,000 sentences technique is best done in combination with lots of input so that you continue to build your vocabulary and understand the full range of ways the language can be used. The technique helps you use the language more naturally, giving you quick access to the grammatical forms and ways of phrasing ideas that native speakers use, avoiding your natural tendency as a learner to use the structures, phrases, and grammar of your native language.

I released the initial post in late June. Since then, I have committed myself to actively learning Italian using the 1,000 sentences technique in advance of a trip to Italy. With that trip due to happen within the next two weeks, I want to share what I learned.

Progress so far

In total, I now have 878 target-language sentences in my flashcard deck. Roughly half are from a pre-existing flashcard deck that I downloaded; the rest are custom-created by me from sentences I found online and in the content I use to learn. Ideally, more would have been custom-created than was actually the case.

In terms of quantity, I would say that roughly 800 to 900 flashcards have been just right for me. It is enough for me to gain a good, wide base of the language’s structure, but it is not so large as to become a massive burden.

My flashcards came from:

phrasebooks and articles about phrases
YouTube videos
dictionaries such as Wiktionary, particularly its example phrases for words
articles about grammar that provide example sentences
language lessons I found online.

I decided to include common phrases, like “Che figata!” (“How cool!”), to occasionally throw in during daily conversation and sound more natural.

I did not spend as much time as I could have on learning because of life and work commitments, but I was able to learn a good number of sentences in the time I had. I have noticed an improvement in my spoken fluency with conversation partners. In particular, I found myself much more easily able to use grammatical forms naturally and quickly while speaking, rather than having to pause and stumble to structure my thoughts. The structure comes naturally (though I still have to struggle to find the words!).

As a side effect, I have also found myself more comfortable when reading the language, as the forms that were previously quite foreign to me now feel very familiar.

Recommendations

I intend to pull this together into a larger guide, but here are a few key recommendations that I will give you now.

Include key phrases, such as “Dai!” (“Come on!”), to help you sound natural in conversation. You can even learn idioms, such as “Non vedo l’ora!” (“I can’t wait!”), if you like.
Make sure you get your sentences from the most authoritative and, ideally, naturalistic sources. The best sources include natural, normal conversational speech. Podcasts and YouTube videos that feature conversations between friends are the ideal archetype. Use an add-on that improves the subtitles of YouTube and Netflix (I use Language Reactor, but there are plenty of alternatives).
Find articles that discuss key grammatical points you are not familiar with, and mine the example sentences for yourself. These are some of the best sentences because they are often useful, short, common, and generated by native speakers.
Avoid generating made-up sentences without having them checked by a native speaker. Even though it might seem fine to replace a word, you don’t know for sure whether that will make the resulting phrase sound unnatural or strange. Avoid learning something that may not be correct.
Spread your sentences out. While 1,000 sentences sounds like a lot, you can spread them throughout your learning over a long period of time. If you learn many new cards at once, you will start off strong, but the reviews will quickly pile up and overwhelm you. I added no more than 10 per day even at my peak, though those with more time to study can get away with more.
Avoid sentences that are too long or use too many unfamiliar words. A sentence should focus on only one new thing at a time. If a sentence includes two parts or is longer, consider finding a way to de-emphasise one part of it. For example, if you have a phrase with two parts, where the first is needed for context but the second is what you are trying to learn, consider bolding the second part and testing yourself only on that part when you study the flashcard.
Pay close attention to which sentences are working and which are not. If a sentence is not working for you for whatever reason, it is a wise idea to simply suspend it. You can always create a different sentence with the same form, or, if your problem stems from struggling to remember that specific form, you can keep many sentences that use the form in different ways to help give you more practice.
As much as possible, use sentences that you have added yourself. Flashcard decks can be useful; however, the sentences will not be tailored to your actual needs. I can recommend them at the start of a learning journey, when basically everything is new, but once you reach an intermediate stage, it can be counterproductive to simply learn any sentence that is given to you by a flashcard deck. If you are going to use a pre-made flashcard deck, I recommend suspending all of the cards and then going through them and manually activating the ones you see and feel are useful.
Don’t learn sentences at the expense of other forms of study. I would say only 10% of my study time was spent doing sentences. The rest was almost entirely dedicated to natural input.

Final thoughts

Overall, the 1,000 sentences technique is a powerful tool, especially for intermediate learners who can understand enough of the language but feel stilted and uncomfortable when they try to speak.

For advanced learners, this type of flashcard can be useful for helping reduce the chance of fossilised errors, as well as giving access to forms that do not come up often in normal day-to-day life but are nonetheless useful or desired for achieving full fluency.

Finally, remember that language learning is a long, ongoing journey. There are no cheat codes and no shortcuts. You need an enormous amount of input and exposure to the language in order to fully absorb its nuance and usage. What the 1,000 sentences technique does is give you quicker access to the most useful features that are most different between your native language and your target language, facilitating your ability to use those forms and features accurately earlier.