Spanish Vocabulary Practice
November 5, 2021 8:38 AM Subscribe
For the last few years I've been working my way through Duolingo and am now at the point where I can semi-read the Harry Potter books in Spanish with the occasional help of Google translate and referring to the original English. To supplement my studies I'd love a website that's the equivalent of vocabulary flashcards. Does this exist?
I'm not interested in listening or speaking, just reading. I'm pretty OK with the basics of grammar and really just wanting to work on vocab (beyond the words for magic wand and house elf and various potions). Thanks!
I'm not interested in listening or speaking, just reading. I'm pretty OK with the basics of grammar and really just wanting to work on vocab (beyond the words for magic wand and house elf and various potions). Thanks!
I've been using Clozemaster for Dutch vocabulary. There's lists of most frequent words to use.
posted by vacapinta at 8:51 AM on November 5, 2021
posted by vacapinta at 8:51 AM on November 5, 2021
Duolingo shut down Tinycards a year ago.
I’ve been pretty happy with Anki, which is free, except for iPhones. There are user made decks for Spanish based on Duolingo if you don’t want to make your own.
posted by betweenthebars at 10:19 AM on November 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
I’ve been pretty happy with Anki, which is free, except for iPhones. There are user made decks for Spanish based on Duolingo if you don’t want to make your own.
posted by betweenthebars at 10:19 AM on November 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Seconding Anki. I've found it very helpful although I've mostly entered cards manually.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 11:22 AM on November 5, 2021
posted by Sheydem-tants at 11:22 AM on November 5, 2021
Duolingo shut down Tinycards a year ago.
I was not aware of that--I guess that partially explains why I haven't used it in more than a year.
posted by box at 11:26 AM on November 5, 2021
I was not aware of that--I guess that partially explains why I haven't used it in more than a year.
posted by box at 11:26 AM on November 5, 2021
I found Anki incredibly difficult to get started with, but maybe I missed something...
Instead I ended up using Quizlet - you can use other people's decks or set up your own, but you can import them from a spreadsheet so it's quite a good way to practice eg. a list of words you've noted down while reading.
I also used Drops for a while - it has loads of vocab already in there, organised by theme, has a flashcard element but also various simple games to help you drill the words. I used the paid version but there is a free one that you could use to get a taste for it.
posted by penguin pie at 2:50 PM on November 5, 2021
Instead I ended up using Quizlet - you can use other people's decks or set up your own, but you can import them from a spreadsheet so it's quite a good way to practice eg. a list of words you've noted down while reading.
I also used Drops for a while - it has loads of vocab already in there, organised by theme, has a flashcard element but also various simple games to help you drill the words. I used the paid version but there is a free one that you could use to get a taste for it.
posted by penguin pie at 2:50 PM on November 5, 2021
I found the Lingvist app a great supplement to Duolingo for learning vocabulary! It measures your progress by telling you how many words you know from the few thousand most common words in the Spanish language. And it tells you what percentage of the average text you would be able to understand. I’m a beginner so I’m not sure how advanced it goes, but I liked the repetition and focus on learning new words, especially once I got the hang of basic conjugation and granmar.
posted by a.steele at 6:28 PM on November 5, 2021
posted by a.steele at 6:28 PM on November 5, 2021
I’ve used Memrise, Anki and Lingvist for learning (German) vocab and I liked Lingvist the most of the three.
Memrise was fine, although I got a bit tired of its design language (an odd combination of growing plants and rockets going to space, if I remember correctly), and for me it was a bit buggy. This was a couple of years ago.
Anki was very configurable, almost too much so, but in terms of design felt very “open source” (if you know what I mean). Practice felt efficient but joyless. This was more than a couple of years ago.
I liked Lingvist’s aesthetic (cleaner and and simpler than Memrise, more elegant than Anki). And, while the flash cards in the other two apps were for single words, Lingvist shows a whole (foreign-language) sentence with a gap for you to fill in. I think having a little more context for each word helped me remember it.
posted by fabius at 6:55 AM on November 6, 2021
Memrise was fine, although I got a bit tired of its design language (an odd combination of growing plants and rockets going to space, if I remember correctly), and for me it was a bit buggy. This was a couple of years ago.
Anki was very configurable, almost too much so, but in terms of design felt very “open source” (if you know what I mean). Practice felt efficient but joyless. This was more than a couple of years ago.
I liked Lingvist’s aesthetic (cleaner and and simpler than Memrise, more elegant than Anki). And, while the flash cards in the other two apps were for single words, Lingvist shows a whole (foreign-language) sentence with a gap for you to fill in. I think having a little more context for each word helped me remember it.
posted by fabius at 6:55 AM on November 6, 2021
« Older ID this poem: "I've got my life back" | COBRA admin says they paid health insurance... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by box at 8:47 AM on November 5, 2021 [1 favorite]