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From reading to remembering
Reading brings the words to you; review keeps them. The best word list is the one you build yourself from stories you actually read, because every word on it already comes with a moment you remember.
Why your own list beats a downloaded deck
A ready-made list of the top 5,000 words is sensible and hard to stick with: nothing ties one card to another. A word you met in a story has a place, a character and a sentence attached. When you see it again, you remember the scene, not just the translation.
Which words to keep
- Keep words you meet twice. If it came back, it will come back again.
- Keep words you want to say. Your job, your hobbies, what you talk about.
- Skip the rest. A rare word for a kind of medieval boat can stay in the book.
Around ten new words from a reading session is plenty. Stop before review starts to feel like work.
What a good card looks like
Front
The sentence from the story, with the word in it. Read it aloud if you can.
Back
The word in its dictionary form, its meaning in this sentence, and the sentence’s translation if you need it.
Keep to the meaning you met. A word with six dictionary senses is six separate things to learn, and you only need the one in front of you today.
How to do it with DuoText
- Read a story from the free library, or your own book, side by side with the translation.
- Tap a word for its meaning in that sentence. With a free account, it’s saved under My words, along with the sentence.
- Open My words and choose Export CSV / Anki.
- In Anki, choose Import File, pick the CSV and match the columns. It has the dictionary form, the word as it appeared, its meaning, the sentence and how well you know it.
Don’t want to bother with Anki? Subscribers get flashcards and spaced review built in, and can practise a chapter’s words right after reading it.
Questions
Should I make flashcards from every word I look up?
No. Only words you've met more than once, or would want to use yourself. Most words you look up once won't come back for a long time, and a deck full of them becomes a chore.
Why put the sentence on the card?
A word on its own is easy to forget. The sentence you met it in brings back the story around it, shows how the word is used, and tells you which meaning you learned.
How do I export my words from DuoText to Anki?
With a free account, the words you tap while reading are saved under My words. Choose Export CSV / Anki there and import the file into Anki; each row has the word, its meaning and the sentence.
Do I need Anki?
No. Subscribers can practise their words as flashcards with spaced review right on DuoText. Anki is the choice if you already have your cards there.