question for Excel gurus

[Monkeyleg]

I assume this is a task best suited for Excel.

I'm slowly learning Italian. I have a long list of Italian words and phrases that I know. The problem with having them in a list is that I remember the meaning when I see the word, but the word doesn't come to me when I'm trying to say something. So, I'm not really learning to speak.

I thought that if I had the Italian words and phrases in one column, and  the English equivalents in another, I could somehow scramble the two, but have them correlate. So, when I want to say "friend", I have to think of the word "amico", and then check the correlated Italian word to see if it's correct.

Any suggestions as to a good and relatively simple way to do this?

[Angel Eyes]

Have you considered taking a class?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9TVYCffHEE


(No, it's not very helpful)

[HeroHog]

Easily done with a sequential number column for each language then ya index off of them and use them to scramble then restructure the order.

[Monkeyleg]

Easily done with a sequential number column for each language then ya index off of them and use them to scramble then restructure the order.

Okay. How do I do what you just said?

I figured there was a way to assign in one column to the contents of the cell next to the numbers, do the same with another pair of columns, and have them correlate somehow I just don't know how to do it.

[230RN]

What version are you using?  I think I had the same problem in early XP versions of Office on my legacy machine with that kind of sorting by column which I used to do at work all the time with a later Office edition.  It would sort one  column itself, but the corresponding cells along the rows would stay the same.

Was correlating aisles by number in the supermarket with products.   When I sorted by aisle number, the products in the rows stayed the same and would not columnize with the sorted aisle numbers.  No joy.  (I do not have the full Office suite on my Win7 machine.)

No help for your problem, but I finally gave up and just took a picture of the store directory.

I was going to do an Excel listing of firearms , but after that experience, I just said pisonit.  Imagine mixing up all the serial numbers on your firearms?  Not to mention calibers.

"Ruger -- 10/22 --S/N none -- cal .30-06."  
"S&W -- Model 10 -- S/N RA894008 -- cal 12 ga."

AAAACK !

[HeroHog]

Okay. How do I do what you just said?

I figured there was a way to assign in one column to the contents of the cell next to the numbers, do the same with another pair of columns, and have them correlate somehow I just don't know how to do it.

It will be easiest to talk/walk ya through it. Won't take long at all. PM me yer phone number and I can call ya.

[dogmush]

It's a little clunky, but here's A way to do it.

Column A: just number it from 1 to whatever.
Column B: your English words and phrases.

Skip Column C. (this is just for formatting purposes)

Column D: Copy Column A.  1 to whatever.
Column E: Italian words and phrase, in the same order as the english ones. i.e. if "5" in B is "Friend", then "5" in E is "amico"
Cell F1: type =RAND()   (this will give you a random number between 0 and 1)
Auto fill Column F all the way to the bottom of the list.
Highlight Columns D, E, and F (only)*. Right Click->Sort-> Custom Sort. You'll get a dialog box with a couple drop downs.  The first one will be "Sort By".  Click the arrow and select "Column F".  The right hand drop down should switch over to "smallest to Largest" automatically.  Click OK.

That will sort those three columns numerically, by the random number.  So "amico" will be somewhere random on the list.  But when you find it it will still be next to "5" in Column D, so you can reference "5" in Column A and find "Friend".

*ETA: you have to highlight the cells in those three columns by dragging. Clicking the headers and getting the whole column won't let you sort correctly.

[Monkeyleg]

Thanks, Dogmush. That  works just fine. Grazie mille! Tu sei molto forte.