Astonishing New Language Learning Tool: Flash cards!

Some years ago, I ran across a set of flashcards that were color coded for nouns, verbs and adjectives. It was pretty cool because you could take one of each and make a sentence. Some of the sentences made sense. Others didn't. But even the sentences that didn't make sense served their purpose: it gets you in the habit of grammar to be able to create unreal sentences and know why at one level they're right even though at another level they're not really sentences you'd expect from a native speaker ("The bicycle eats a sleepy goldfish").

For learning words or, better, whole sentences, flash card tools like Anki are clearly the way to go. But for play? In this case, especially if you're having trouble with the grammar of a language you're learning, it may be that physical cards are the way to go. Here's what you need on the cards:

1) Headword
2) Forms of word the way it will most likely appear in simple sentences
3) Indication of the part of speech
4) Indication of where it will most likely fit in a sentence

Let's take three examples using Latin:

Nauta (Sailor)
Nauta (nom) / Nautam (acc) / Nautae (dat)
Noun
Subj / Indirect Object

Dare (Give)
Do / Das / Dat
Verb
Verb

Liber (Book)
Liber (nom) / Librum (acc)
Noun
Subj / Direct Object

With the three cards, I can make sentences like:

Nauta (subj) librum (dir obj) dat (he gives). The sailor gives the book.
Nautae (indir obj) librum (dir obj) do (I give). I give the sailor a book.

Make yourself cards for three things/people likely to be subjects, direct objects and indirect objects. Then pick three verbs that take both direct and indirect objects. Then you can start shuffling them up and come up with a two dozen sentences give or take. And every time you add a few cards, the number of practice sentences multiply. After that, you can note your new sentences in a notebook, indicating which ones work, which ones don't feel right and why. Or if you're trying to make a specific sentence, you'll have the information handy for how to put the pieces together.

While electronic flash cards are great for memorization, as a tool for language play, there's something handy about the paper kind. So if you're new to a language and trying to get a handle on things, give mix-and-match language try!