# Vocabulary

> Word cards, gentle nudges towards stronger words, and flashcards, from downloadable vocabulary packs.

URL: https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/tools/vocabulary/
Section: Tools

The **Vocabulary** tool teaches you words while you type. Install a pack (the Word Smart and Barron's GRE lists come first), and when you type a plain word that one of the pack's words says better, a chip on the suggestion strip offers it: **hate → abhor**. Tap the chip for the word's card: its meaning, how to say it, where it comes from, and the words around it. Hold the chip to swap the word in. The same packs feed flashcards, in the keyboard and in the app, and a word of the day.

  tools/vocabulary-card — The card for abhor: pronunciation, senses, synonyms and antonyms, the word family, and where the word came from.

## Getting a pack

Vocabulary is one of the [Extensions](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/reference/settings/extensions/): the tool, the packs, the word of the day and the nudges all go when the **Vocabulary** bundle is off, and come back with your progress kept.

Open Tools / Vocabulary / Vocabulary packs and download a list: Word Smart 1 and 2, Barron's 333, 800 and 1100, Magoosh 1000, Kaplan 900, Powerscore 700, SparkNotes 1000, Manhattan Prep 1000 and GregMat 1100. Each pack is a study list turned into a small dictionary: for every word, the part of speech, pronunciation in American and British English, up to three senses with an example sentence and dated quotations, synonyms and antonyms, the word family, the etymology, and a mnemonic. Definitions come from Wiktionary, with WordNet filling any gaps.

Packs also come from [add-on repositories](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/addons/overview/) (type `vocabulary`), from a `.wmvocab.json` file opened in a file manager (gzipped or not), or from your own lists (see below). Several packs can be on at once; a word that appears in more than one shows every list it belongs to on its card.

When the download cannot run here (the no-internet build, or a network that blocks it), **Get the pack files** under the installed packs lists every pack's address, each with a copy and an open button. Fetch the `.wmvocab.json.gz` file in a browser, then pick it with **Import a pack or flashcards**.

### Bringing your flashcards

**Import a pack or flashcards** at the bottom of the installed packs takes the cards you already have elsewhere, as well as `.wmvocab.json` files:

- **Anki**: a deck (`.apkg`) or a whole collection (`.colpkg`), from any Anki version, including the newer exports that older readers cannot open. Only the notes are read; images and sounds stay behind.
- **Quizlet**: the text from **Export**, with a tab or a comma between term and definition and a new line between cards. Save it as a `.txt` file and pick that.
- **Any CSV or TSV**: a spreadsheet saved with a word column and a meaning column. Anki's **Notes in Plain Text** export works too.

The front of each card becomes the word and the back its definition. When the columns or the note's fields have names, they are used: *Front*, *Word* or *Term* is the word, *Back*, *Meaning* or *Definition* the definition, and a field called *Example* or *Sentence* fills the example, *Reading* or *Pronunciation* the pronunciation. Formatting is removed. A word that is on more than one card gets one entry with each meaning as a sense. Cloze cards, and cards whose front is a sentence rather than a word (more than 64 characters), are skipped. The pack takes the file's name, or the deck's name for a whole collection, and appears with the other installed packs, where it can be switched off or deleted.

Translations are separate, small downloads per pack and language. The languages your keyboard is set to are fetched on their own when a pack lands or when you add a language (a romanised layout such as Banglish reads the Bangla glosses; a Croatian keyboard takes the Serbo-Croatian sidecar when a pack has no closer one), and you can pick others under **Translation languages** on the tool's page. The full list of a pack's languages folds out under it on the packs screen. Every gloss in another script carries a romanisation, so the card can show "ghrina" beside ঘৃণা.

Tools / Vocabulary / Browse words lists every word across your installed packs, searched by word or definition. Chips filter it to one pack or to all of them, and to All, New, Learning or Learnt; tap a word for its card, and a check mark shows the ones you have learnt.

## The nudge

The chip appears once you have typed the whole word, stays through the space or full stop after it, and goes away when you start the next word. It only ever offers; nothing is changed until you tap or hold.

| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Offer stronger words | Turns the nudge on. Off, the chip and every other row below it disappear |
| Tapping the chip | Opens the card, or swaps the word. Holding does the other one |
| Also for the words themselves | Typing *abhor* offers its card, so you can check a word you half remember |
| Which words nudge | Words you have not learnt (the default), every word, or only words you have learnt, as practice |
| Sensitivity | How much plainer the typed word has to be. *Low* nudges on "hate" but not on "detest" |
| Repeat a nudge | Every time, once per text field, or once a day |

Nudges run last among the smart chips: a sum, a currency, "define hate", and a tool keyword all win over one.

A gloss in one of your languages nudges too: type ঘৃণা on a Bangla layout, or "ghrina" on the romanised one, and the chip offers *abhor*. A gloss of more than one word ("হেয় করা") is matched as a phrase.

## The card

The headword, its pronunciation and a speaker button come first, with the parts of speech, the lists the word is in and how far along you are as small tags. The recording is Wiktionary's when it has one and the network allows; otherwise a downloaded [offline voice](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/tools/read-back/#offline-voices) for the language says the word, or the phone's speech synthesiser does, in the accent you chose. Speech speed and pitch sliders tune the synthesiser, and disappear once Voice is pinned to the Wiktionary recording alone; **Play a sample** speaks *serendipity* to try the current voice, accent, speed and pitch together. In the app the rest is one section at a time: **Meaning** (senses grouped by part of speech, each with its example; quotations from print open on a tap, each with its year and a trimmed reference), **Related words**, the mnemonic set apart under **Remember it**, **In your languages** for the translations (each gloss with its own romanisation beside it; a language you downloaded by hand shows even when it is not one of yours), and **Where it comes from** with the origin chain up front and the etymology folded behind it. In the app, tapping a related word opens its own page when it is in a pack; any other is looked up online and shown in a sheet, from which it can go into *My words*. In the keyboard, a related word that is in a pack opens its card and one that is not is typed; holding always types it. Tools / Vocabulary / Tapping a synonym or antonym can change this, so a tap always types the word instead, or sends it to the Dictionary tool. The **Full dictionary** action hands the word to the [Dictionary tool](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/tools/search/#looking-up-definitions). The keyboard's card also has **Copy**, which copies the card as text, and with the [AI tool](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/tools/ai/) on, **Ask AI**, which opens a [chat](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/tools/ai-chat/#asking-about-another-tools-text) about the card, and a long press on a definition or an example selects it, with **Ask AI**, **Copy** and **Insert** on a bar over it.

Every section of the card can be shown in the keyboard and the app, in the app only, or not at all, under Tools / Vocabulary / Card sections. The word family, the broader and narrower words, topics, etymology, origin chain, quotations from print, rhymes, hyphenation, forms, the Proto-Indo-European root, the Wikipedia link and when the word was first used are in the app only by default; the mnemonic and translations are everywhere.

## Learning

Mark a word **Learnt** from its card and it stops nudging. The **Review** tab (in the keyboard) and the Review screen (in the app) run flashcards over everything due today, plus new words up to the count set by Tools / Vocabulary / New words a day (10 by default): read the word, flip, grade yourself. The back of the card has the meaning in your language under the English one, unless Tools / Vocabulary / Card sections keeps translations off (in the keyboard, it takes translations shown there). Two schedulers are offered under Tools / Vocabulary / Flashcards: five **Leitner boxes** with gaps of 1, 3, 7, 14 and 30 days, or **SM-2**, the rule Anki uses. Both write the same record, so switching keeps your progress. Once today's queue is done, or there was nothing due to start with, a **Study ahead** row lets you pull tomorrow's cards in early.

The **word of the day** is the same for everyone who has the same packs: the words are laid out in a fixed order and each day takes the next, so every word comes round once before any repeats, and a device that has learnt the day's word moves on to the next unlearnt one. It shows as a card on the settings home, with the word's meaning in your language under the English one when a translation is downloaded, and as a chip on the suggestion strip. The chip comes back in a few text fields spread over the day (how many is a setting) until you tap it or dismiss it. The card's **X** puts it away until the next word. Under Tools / Vocabulary / Word of the day you can turn either off, or have a new word every 12, 6 or 3 hours, or every hour.

## Your own lists

Tools / Vocabulary / My lists shows every list you have made, each with its own switch, and a **New list** button. Name a new list to open its editor: type a word and the details fill in from an installed pack when one knows it, or from the network when you tap **Look up online**: Wiktionary's full entry (through kaikki.org, the same source the packs are built from), with the free dictionary API and Wiktionary's own definition endpoint as fallbacks when it is down. That order is the **Providers** list under Tools / Vocabulary, a [provider list](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/tools/providers/) you can reorder or switch sources off in. A look-up is one tap and a few kilobytes, so it is not held back by [Data saver](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/privacy/data-saver/). **Add many words** takes a pasted list, one word per line. **Add to my list** on any card files the word into a list called *My words*, and the Dictionary panel has the same chip.

A list exports as a `.wmvocab.json` file, the same format the packs use, so it can be shared, opened on another phone, or published in an add-on repository. Lists and imported packs travel in [backups](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/reference/file-formats/#backups); downloaded packs do not, since they can be downloaded again.

## Privacy

Everything here runs on the phone: the packs, the index that finds triggers while you type, and your learning record. The only network requests are the ones you start or set up: downloading a pack, the translations for the languages you set (fetched on their own only when Data saver allows downloads outright), a look-up you tap for in the list editor, and playing a Wiktionary recording.