HSK Sentences

[Touchstone57]

I'm looking for a list of HSK Sentences that can be used as flashed, preferably for HSK 3 and upwards.

I've had a look at the Anki deck with 20,000+ sentences for HSK but it has received a lot of bad reviews, with apparently bad translations and incorrect pin yin.

There are some excellent sentence lists on on HSKHSK, which is exactly what I'm looking for, however these are just example sentences so I am looking for something more comprehensive.

If you could point me to some other resources I'd be grateful, I don't mind purchasing exam prep materials if I can get a good sentence list out of it!

[tysond]

My go-to sentence sources around this level:

http://www.zhongwenred.com/

http://www.zhongwengreen.com/

3800 Chinese sentences: http://www.mandarinchineseschool.com/free-online-lessons-with-audioesavideoes/31-3800-useful-chinese-sentences3800

These pretty much all have audio.

They are not strictly HSK but I believe they won't be far off.

[mokushiroku]

Are you looking for sentence lists to learn vocabulary or grammar? This is an important distinction.

[WestTexas]

What is the advantage of studying large numbers of sentences rather than words?

[tysond]

I find six big advantages.

1. Context. I know how the words can be used - part of speech, level of formality, which of many definitions each word uses. Lists of words are hard like this - what does 到 mean? Or 好？ The simplest words are also very complex, and play many grammar roles. Sentences narrow down the space.

2. Parroting. Like a parrot I can just repeat the entire sentence, or unlike a parrot I can change bits of it to customise for my needs. I have used many sentences I learned in real life. It is very satisfying to not struggle to put your thoughts together, just bring out a ready made expression.

3. Guessing the next bit. Sometimes I find words jumping into my speech like magic. A 了 adds itself when needed, or a 来 just 出来s from my mouth. The sentences start to structure your speech more naturally, and your sentences connect and finish themselves.

4. Set expressions. Hard to guess them from words, but easy to learn and high frequency.

5. Colocations and related concepts. Some words at used together a lot 市场竞争激烈 for example. Sometimes certain nouns go with certain verbs. 开门，打电话，etc. And sometimes concepts are frequently linked (打着 and 积分 probably indicate discussion of a membership card). Sentences let you learn related things in their natural relationship. Many word lists are not even grouped or related in any way other than pinyin alphabetical.

6. Reading speed - no spaces in Chinese but word lists are conveniently spaced one by one. I know i need to train my eye to distinguish words. A Chinese colleague the other day commented to me as I was reading out loud some unfamiliar text that I needed more practice in reading characters in groups. So I prefer to double my bang for buck and read sentences while studying.

Personally I love doing cloze deletion on sentences. I tried learning entire sentences but it was too hard. Cloze deletion means remove one word from the sentence. The try to guess the word. Context is provided on the front of the SRS card - English translation, image, Chinese definition, previous and later sentences in the text, whatever is enough to help without giving away the missing word.

I find lists ok when the words are more easily defined as 1:1 equivalents. Like learning a list of professions - doctor nurse teacher lawyer. Or country names. But actually I just find a sentence or dialog or paragraph which lists those things and learn that instead, that way I reinforce linking words, list making words, comparison words or whatever other words surround the simple words. With countries I would try to find sentences about population or climate or political systems or something, so you learn the names as well as something to say about the places.

Not to say I don't study lists of new words - I do the first time I see them and discuss each one with a teacher. But then I find example sentences, then I SRS the example sentences.

[Touchstone57]

I am looking at sentence lists to learn vocabulary! I already have a strong foundation with vocabulary and grammar, but having looked through the HSK vocab lists there is still a lot I don't know as I haven't studied for the HSK directly before but from a lot of other resources.

For me sentence mining is quite useful as I will already know a lot of the words but can learn new works easily because of the context. I agree with most of what Tysond says above.

The resources you mentioned above are useful, though if I could find some that would go directly into flashcard format it would be even better (I use Pleco mainly).

Maybe I'm lazy but I like to have everything grouped together before I start learning, I don't like to trawl through every individual lesson and then make sentence cards.