My biggest criticism of Tatoeba is that the sentences the community create are almost too professional and formal. For example imagine wanting to learn how to say “Today I went to the shops to buy some groceries.”
And you end up learning “On this day, I journeyed to the store in order to purchase some groceries”.
It’s just so ridiculous. Yes it’s correct, yes it’s grammatically correct. But nobody ever speaks like that, unless you’re the King / Queen or some 18th century poet / philosopher.
I wish we could filter the sentences we get on Clozemaster to casual / informal / short hand only. I don’t even think that’s possible because the community on Tatoeba are so concerned with producing the most flawless translations, that it ends up with every sentence being very formal.
That doesn’t match my perception of either Clozemaster or Tatoeba. Tatoeba has many informal sentences in addition to neutral and formal ones, and Clozemaster tends to favor neutral ones. Which collections are you using? Can you give us some actual examples of sentences that are formal than you want?
the community on Tatoeba are so concerned with producing the most flawless translations
That’s a good thing.
that it ends up with every sentence being very formal.
That doesn’t follow. If the source sentence is informal, the translations should also be informal, and they usually are.
I wish we could filter the sentences we get on Clozemaster to casual / informal / short hand only.
There are collections that feature informal speech. I believe that the " Sentence Lists" link that you can find at the bottom of a page has some.
Learning Italian, I don’t mind an occasional formal sentence as it prompts me to ask “How would you say this in casual conversation?” I think it’s good to know both, eg best not to use “Ciao!” with everyone, there are rules of etiquette:-)