# Guide: How I cram irregular verbs in a language **URL:** \ **Category:** Learning Effectively\ **Created:** [August 3, 2025, 9:45am UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/guide-how-i-cram-irregular-verbs-in-a-language/65118 "2025-08-03T09:45:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Darling](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/darling/32/30234_2.png) [@Darling](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/Darling)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2025, 9:45am UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/guide-how-i-cram-irregular-verbs-in-a-language/65118/1 "2025-08-03T09:45:31Z")
So, here’s how I managed to survive French irregular verbs - using an Anki deck I built myself. If you don’t speak French: every irregular verb has its own conjugation pattern for each pronoun. Basically, it’s a mess. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/anki2/original/3X/d/5/d5e4a9725e380787c2600389424d49b9677827e7.jpeg) Here’s the setup: • One main deck → split into decks by verb tense. • Each tense deck → splits again into mini‑decks of verbs, each covering every pronoun in that tense. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/anki2/original/3X/0/f/0fbb72d443288fa4febe61a9722c2a225285a727.jpeg) ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/anki2/original/3X/c/9/c997ef988fe7e59220f8499d54088e2877ea7589.jpeg) How the cards look: • Front (Basic): the pronoun + audio of the infinitive. • Back (Type in the answer): the same pronoun + its correct conjugated form. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/anki2/original/3X/4/2/42d0434d5bd2b84ca588c30c229dcfb2b06b377b.jpeg) This way you can easily cram irregular verbs for basically every language. Yes, it takes a while to make such a deck. But the advantage is that you can repeat numerous verbs in a tense simultaneously because of the deck structure. **For those who want to use my French deck:** **[https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1640784396](https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1640784396)** · It took 33 hours for me to cram the 5 tenses in the deck, excluding passé simple. · I do not recommend learning more than 3 verbs (21 cards) every day per tense. ---
**Author:** ![matta](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/matta/32/5126_2.png) [@matta](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/matta)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 4:50pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/guide-how-i-cram-irregular-verbs-in-a-language/65118/2 "2025-08-04T16:50:44Z")
Have you thought of presenting the information as a Cloze card: i.e. each conjugated verb + pronoun is an optional Cloze. That generates 21 different cards for the card design in your first image. This way, you are not asking for a user to understand the whole card, but to know one piece of information. It is pretty easy to set up, if you use a spreadsheet. ---
**Author:** ![Darling](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/darling/32/30234_2.png) [@Darling](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/Darling)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 6:49am UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/guide-how-i-cram-irregular-verbs-in-a-language/65118/4 "2025-08-05T06:49:36Z")
I went with type‑in because it forces active recall and spelling, which sticks better for me. ---
**Author:** ![ZornHadNoChoice](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/zornhadnochoice/32/28874_2.png) [@ZornHadNoChoice](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/ZornHadNoChoice)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 10:14am UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/guide-how-i-cram-irregular-verbs-in-a-language/65118/5 "2025-08-05T10:14:58Z")
You can combine cloze and type in [Field Replacements - Anki Manual](https://docs.ankiweb.net/templates/fields.html#checking-your-answer). ---
**Author:** ![Darling](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/darling/32/30234_2.png) [@Darling](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/Darling)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 10:30am UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/guide-how-i-cram-irregular-verbs-in-a-language/65118/6 "2025-08-05T10:30:35Z")
Yeah, but it builds a helpful habit if you actually write out both the pronoun and the conjugation. ---
**Author:** ![sprvlcn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/54ee81/32.png) [@sprvlcn](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/sprvlcn)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 2:36pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/guide-how-i-cram-irregular-verbs-in-a-language/65118/7 "2025-08-05T14:36:21Z")
But in a cloze card only one item is hidden and the rest are all visible. However in a verb conjugation table the entries are not independent. They usually follow a pattern, so the visible parts will give away the answer to the hidden part. So if you have, for example: nous {{c1:aurons}} vous {{c2:aurez}} Then you’d have a card that looks like: nous […] vous aurez But for this verb, the whole key to the future tense is simply that the stem av- changes to aur- So with this cloze method you immediately know any answer by inspection without having to retrieve it from memory. ---
**Author:** ![ZornHadNoChoice](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/zornhadnochoice/32/28874_2.png) [@ZornHadNoChoice](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/ZornHadNoChoice)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 4:48pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/guide-how-i-cram-irregular-verbs-in-a-language/65118/8 "2025-08-05T16:48:51Z")
> [@Content dependent card (quantity) generation](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/content-dependent-card-quantity-generation/64605/3): > > You can do this with clozes. Put the smiley into the “Front” field, and format the “Back” field with clozes as follows: {{c1::}} {{c2::smile}} {{c3::happy}} {{c4::cheerful}} (the first cloze is empty and serves as a placeholder for generating the single Front → Back card) On the front template, use: {{#c1}} {{Front}} {{/c1}} {{^c1}} {{cloze:Back}} {{/c1}} (this will show the content of the Front field on the first card, and the clozed Back on all subsequent cards) Add the following to … ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/anki2/original/1X/8f1279ababc5879d54e4838989f606cfe55af8c7.jpeg) [@system](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/system)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 4:49pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/guide-how-i-cram-irregular-verbs-in-a-language/65118/9 "2025-11-03T16:49:03Z")
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