Show HN: Vocabulary 90 – vocabulary learning automation
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Show HN: Vocabulary 90 – vocabulary learning automation
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Re: Show HN: Vocabulary 90 – vocabulary learning automation
#2Close to an idea I've had for a bit which is to force you to do a 5 word quiz from a fixed group of words at a frequency of your choosing. For me trying to learn Korean, I'd like to indefinitely receive at least two quizzes a day with five words each time among the most used 1000 words. It's the only hope I can think of to force myself to learn.
Currently I have a Python script that creates calendar notifications from a CSV so I get emailed each morning with a new vocab word, but I need more than one a day and I need it to be interactive.
Duolingo does have a daily quiz reminder but I don't find their content so useful. I'd rather just pick a few hundred words and just be forced to memorize them rather than the bits and pieces of words and grammar duolingo suggests.
If there is an app like this that sends you quizzes at a schedule from columns in a spreadsheet please save me the time of implementing this!
Re: Show HN: Vocabulary 90 – vocabulary learning automation
#3Close to an idea I've had for a bit which is to force you to do a 5 word quiz from a fixed group of words at a frequency of your choosing. For me trying to learn Korean, I'd like to indefinitely receive at least two quizzes a day with five words each time among the most used 1000 words. It's the only hope I can think of to force myself to learn. Currently I have a Python script that creates calendar notifications fro…
Have you ever hear of Anki or Memrise ?
Re: Show HN: Vocabulary 90 – vocabulary learning automation
#4Close to an idea I've had for a bit which is to force you to do a 5 word quiz from a fixed group of words at a frequency of your choosing. For me trying to learn Korean, I'd like to indefinitely receive at least two quizzes a day with five words each time among the most used 1000 words. It's the only hope I can think of to force myself to learn. Currently I have a Python script that creates calendar notifications fro…
Have you ever hear of Anki or Memrise ?
Yes, but I hadn't heard of any scheduling features. I just used the app on my laptop.
Looked into it a bit and you're right, I should try to figure it out first.
Although Anki is pretty useful, I found it's UX arcane and complex. Would prefer something simpler but if it means less work for me it could be good to stick with.
Re: Show HN: Vocabulary 90 – vocabulary learning automation
#5The method I use to retain vocabulary is very primitive. Every time I see a new word, I write it down in Google Keep. I write it down with "associated" words, maybe just one or two. It looks like this: "saccharine/mawkish/sappy". I have a block of text then which looks like: "saccharine/mawkish/sappy; halcyon/good old days; vituperative/acerbic/caustic/bitter". Just a massive, massive block. And everyday, my eyes scan over this block - maybe just one or two minutes - for words I don't quite recall, or simply words I forgot and would like to use again. "Interstices", "effete", "recidivist", "hormetic" all launch into my consciousness, and so I am reminded of what they mean. I have personally found this a very effective method for both efficiently recording new vocabulary and then recalling it. As a result, more vocabulary "sticks" - a lot more. I don't try to use it too often, to avoid coming off as pretentious, but in fact I think it has expanded my thinking quite a bit. I don't just reach for the first word that's immediately available to me. Whenever I have a thought, I now have a several choices in which I can articulate it. Subjectively at least, I feel it affords me greater precision in my thoughts. For that reason it has been well worth the investment.
Re: Show HN: Vocabulary 90 – vocabulary learning automation
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ever hear of Anki or Memrise ?
Yes, but I hadn't heard of any scheduling features. I just used the app on my laptop. Looked into it a bit and you're right, I should try to figure it out first. Although Anki is pretty useful, I found it's UX arcane and complex. Would prefer something simpler but if it means less work for me it could be good to stick with.
Yes, but I hadn't heard of any scheduling features. I just used the app on my laptop.
The main point of these programs are the scheduling algorithm.
Although Anki is pretty useful, I found it's UX arcane and complex. Would prefer something simpler but if it means less work for me it could be good to stick with.
Complex? You mean difficult? It's very easy to use basic features to add very basic cards.
Anki is endlessly customizable if you delve deeper.
Re: Show HN: Vocabulary 90 – vocabulary learning automation
#7Close to an idea I've had for a bit which is to force you to do a 5 word quiz from a fixed group of words at a frequency of your choosing. For me trying to learn Korean, I'd like to indefinitely receive at least two quizzes a day with five words each time among the most used 1000 words. It's the only hope I can think of to force myself to learn. Currently I have a Python script that creates calendar notifications fro…
Have you ever hear of Anki or Memrise ?
Anki is fantastic for its flexibility, but for language learning I've found I reach a point of diminishing returns after a certain point. From personal experience, I've been pretty much sold on Stephen Krashen's theory of second language acquisition[1][2], which in practice focuses on comprehensible input.
lingq.com is a pretty good way to learn a second language this way. I use it by uploading an ebook in my target language. The app keeps track of the words I've learned, and highlights the words and phrases I'm still learning or haven't encountered. I can click on the word/phrase as I'm reading to see a definition or translation in the sidebar, and then mark the level at which I've learned it just like in Anki.
It's pretty slow going at the start, and the texts you have to use are very basic, but pretty quickly I was reading entire YA novels with only a handful of unknown words on each page.
[1]https://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash-english.html [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnUc_W3xE1w
Re: Show HN: Vocabulary 90 – vocabulary learning automation
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but I hadn't heard of any scheduling features. I just used the app on my laptop. Looked into it a bit and you're right, I should try to figure it out first. Although Anki is pretty useful, I found it's UX arcane and complex. Would prefer something simpler but if it means less work for me it could be good to stick with.
Yes, but I hadn't heard of any scheduling features. I just used the app on my laptop. The main point of these programs are the scheduling algorithm. Although Anki is pretty useful, I found it's UX arcane and complex. Would prefer something simpler but if it means less work for me it could be good to stick with. Complex? You mean difficult? It's very easy to use basic features to add very basic cards. Anki is endlessl…
When I was making my own deck for German, I had a pretty fancy pipeline for exporting things from a giant spreadsheet into anki [for me entering keywords in the app was super tricky - also because I want to double-check everything in a dictionary (and add information that may not be available on the fly, like gender/plural form/declensions) - the in-app note-adder/browser is IMO just not good enough for that kind of data manipulation/browsing. Assembling and maintaining the list of words was as much work as the revision (but also in its own way revision). It was amazing, but eventually the work-load got too much and I burned out (I had several lapses where I did complicated deck-manipulation to get things back under control) - though after probably more than a year of daily use I can still say it was very worth it.
Now I’m using someone else’s deck for Latin (that goes with a book), and to say “I just want to revise the material from Chapter X” using tags/keywords/whatever is kinda futsy (you have to create a new temporary deck that has a keyword filter). But if you’re using software every day you can get used to kinks. It’s pretty amazing software.
Re: Show HN: Vocabulary 90 – vocabulary learning automation
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ever hear of Anki or Memrise ?
Anki is fantastic for its flexibility, but for language learning I've found I reach a point of diminishing returns after a certain point. From personal experience, I've been pretty much sold on Stephen Krashen's theory of second language acquisition[1][2], which in practice focuses on comprehensible input. lingq.com is a pretty good way to learn a second language this way. I use it by uploading an ebook in my target…
Yes, I can mirror this experience for Anki! I still find it very useful though.
About the comprehensible input theory I have been using this method consistently for almost a year now to teach myself Russian.
It really really works. Initially I focused on learning grammar etc through online course etc but it didn't work for me. When I started focusing on consuming increasingly harder input in Russian (news articles, tweets, short stories etc) I saw a huuuge difference! Your grow your vocab tremendously fast and grammar rules are acquired naturally. I'm not saying it's easy I just say that that method really worked for me.
I tried LingQ to help me and even though is a very good resource the UX is incredibly bad and the free version is even more limiting. To the point that I decided to create my own tool talkabl.com. I decided to open it for free for any language learner.
It's an ongoing experiment on how much of the language learning can be automated :)
Re: Show HN: Vocabulary 90 – vocabulary learning automation
#10This is really good, I used to use an Excel sheet with VBA and a dictionary API to do something similar.