copying some LWT functionality into Jorkens

[mcthulhu]

I've been thinking about adding some Learning With Texts (LWT) features into Jorkens, my own assisted reading tool, though I'm not sure how soon I would get to this. Specifically, I was looking at adding the colorized learning status indications for individual words, at least to start with. This seems like it would be reasonably easy to do - add context (right-click) menu options for different statuses, save them in the database, and add markup to the displayed text according to the different statuses. I would copy LWT's CSS rules verbatim, for that matter, so the colorized text should look the same. I'm kind of wondering, though, whether people actually use all those different statuses; it seems like overkill, though I guess it wouldn't hurt to have them in place.

This would definitely need to be optional; I'd probably add a Jorkens preference to turn "LWT mode" on.

I'd probably also want to add an option to import LWT databases with the associated word statuses and definitions, so potential users of this feature wouldn't have to start over.

I'm not sure at this point how much else I'd want to copy, since Jorkens is already using its own local and online dictionaries, but this might be a start.

[rdearman]

Personally I only ever used the first, middle and last status. E.g. I don't know it, I sorta know it, I know it. I could have just had traffic lights, Red, Amber, Green.

[Stefan]

I'm kind of wondering, though, whether people actually use all those different statuses; it seems like overkill, though I guess it wouldn't hurt to have them in place.

I only used the three standard colours:

Blue - new words that are not translated yet.
Red - words I've added a translation for but don't know fluently.
Green - words I know well.

[MorkTheFiddle]

I've been thinking about adding some Learning With Texts (LWT) features into Jorkens, my own assisted reading tool, though I'm not sure how soon I would get to this. Specifically, I was looking at adding the colorized learning status indications for individual words, at least to start with. This seems like it would be reasonably easy to do - add context (right-click) menu options for different statuses, save them in the database, and add markup to the displayed text according to the different statuses. I would copy LWT's CSS rules verbatim, for that matter, so the colorized text should look the same. I'm kind of wondering, though, whether people actually use all those different statuses; it seems like overkill, though I guess it wouldn't hurt to have them in place.

Sometimes it's overkill, other times it's underkill. The Spanish word, say, cerveza. Either I know it or I don't. But another Spanish word, mar, I know it means sea or ocean, but I can't remember if it is feminine or masculine. As it happens, it can be either, so do I put that in the definition and not show it as known until I know both the meaning and the gender? What about words of many meanings. In Ancient Greek, for example, the word λόγος (logos) has so many different meanings that they cover two or more pages. Do I wait until I know all the meanings before I mark it as known? Are the five subcategories of known enough to cover all the possibilities?
I've been using LWT for about ten years now, and Lingq before that. I treat the categories of "known" with a grain of salt. Category 3, for example, is reserved for expressions of two or more words. Category 4 is used for words I almost know but not quite, but also for compound words (in ancient Greek) whose two or more parts I know but whose meaning as a compound I do not.
For these reasons, I would like to see more categories, but, not really. It would become too complicated, I'm afraid.

[devilyoudont]

When I use these kinds of tools, I have a pass/fail check when I read an unknown word. If I fail, I put it at unknown. When I see the word again, I try to guess it's meaning and reading before looking at the dictionary. If I got it right, I slide it one down the difficulty ranking regardless of how easy or difficult it was for me. When a word has any highlight, I check the dictionary to be sure every time. When I get it wrong, even slightly, I reset it to unknown. When the word no longer has a highlight, I only check the dictionary if I feel unsure.