How to add sentences with a particular combination of words?

When I want to add sentences with a particular word to my collections I go to Cloze-Collections > Add sentences > Paste in words. I mention the word for which I want to find sentences. Then I select and add.

My question is, how do I search for sentences which have two words? For example, I want to find German sentences with “erst als”. If I enter “erst, als” in the list of words it gives me sentences with “erst” and sentences with “als” - OR function, not sentences with both “erst” and “als” - AND function.

Can someone enlighten me if and how I can accomplish this? Many thanks in advance!

3 Likes

@scarletpimpernel

I guess you are trying to add sentences with a “set phrase”. If so, don’t use Cloze-Collections > Add sentences > Paste in words.

  • STEP 1: Go to the “general sentence search” on the right upper side.
  • STEP 2: Type the two words WITHOUT a comma in the search bar.
  • STEP 3: Click the “Add to Collection” button.
  • STEP 4: Change the {{cloze-word}} as you wish, and add a personal hint if necessary.

STEP 1


STEP 2


STEP 3


STEP 4

Hope this helps!

5 Likes

Hey thanks a lot! This was helpful. Can I use regular expressions to search for sentences? Like, I want to search for a sentence with two words but not immediately after one another as a single string i.e. searching for a sentence with two separate strings.

2 Likes

It once was possible to search with regular expressions, but not anymore.

However, it seems like simple wildcard search (*) is supported:

Please try it without the ., so for example mang* to get mange, manger, etc.

6 Likes

Oh that’s a shame… regex search for sentences would make learning process far more efficient :confused:

Do you know how I can search for a sentence with two words in it but not necessarily one after the other?

2 Likes

@scarletpimpernel
As Alan explained, the only regex you can use is an asterisk as a wildcard. But it cannot be used to search for two words which are not directly connected to each other. – e.g., Suppose that your target phrase is “look forward to”. In this case, look*to doesn’t work because a wild card is disabled when the right or left side of the asterisk is separated by a space (i.e. not working for more than one words).

An asterisk is useful if you search for sentences containing “real”, “realistic”, “unreal”, or “unrealistic” by typing *real*. The suffix “-istic” and the prefix “un-” are directly conjugated with the root with no space.

But a wildcard sometimes hits too many sentences, and there is no way to narrow them down. For more information about this side effect, please refer to a related discussion: Question: Advanced search with wildcards. I posted it six months ago, but as far as I know, nothing has been changed with regard to the advanced search. I guess the advanced search is not a high priority for the Clozemaster tech team.

3 Likes