Vocabulary notebook

Looking a word up is easy. Remembering it next week is the hard part. TransOne keeps a Vocabulary notebook for you: every word you look up in the translation window is saved automatically, with its definition and how many times you looked it up. When you are ready, review the words with flashcards. Each word comes back just before you would forget it, and the Progress page shows your memory growing day by day.

You do not have to set anything up. It is on from the start, and everything stays on your Mac.

ScreenshotThe Vocabulary page with a word selected

Screenshot coming soon.

Open Settings ▸ Vocabulary on the Words segment with a few dozen words saved, select one that has been reviewed a few times, and capture the list, the memory curve and the definitions. Suggested file: vocabulary.png.

Where to find it

• Settings ▸ Vocabulary. Open Preferences from the menu bar icon (⌘,). Vocabulary sits in the Library group of the sidebar, right below History. It has three segments at the top: Words, Review and Progress.
• Review Vocabulary in the menu bar menu opens the Review segment directly. When words are waiting, the item shows how many, for example Review Vocabulary · 12.
• The dictionary card. From the second time you look a word up, the dictionary card shows a Looked up N times pill. Click it to open that word in your notebook.

Next to the segments, a small capsule shows what is waiting today, such as "Today · 12 to review" or "Today · 10 new". Click it to start reviewing.

How words get in

A word is saved when it gets a dictionary card in the translation window, that is, when you look up a single word or a short term and one of your dictionaries finds it. Each time you look it up again, its count goes up by one.

• Sentences are never saved, and neither is anything no dictionary found.
• Words in every language are saved, as far as your dictionaries cover them.
• Swapping languages, retrying, or a second dictionary finding the same word does not add an extra count. Only a new lookup does.
• The notebook keeps the dictionary's definitions (up to three parts of speech, with examples), the phonetic spelling, and a one-line translation from your main translation engine.

Words already in your history can be brought in too. See Import from History.

Words

The Words segment lists everything you have saved. The header counts your words and how many you have mastered.

• Search finds a word by its spelling, its translation or any of its definitions.
• The … menu (More) sorts the list by Recent (the default, grouped into Today, This Week and Earlier), Most Looked Up, Due Soonest or Alphabetical, and filters it to All, Learning, Mastered or Suspended. If you have words in more than one language, a Language filter appears as well.
• Each row shows the word, its translation, how many times you looked it up, and four dots for its learning stage.
• Use ↑ and ↓ to move through the list.

Select a word to see its details:

• the word, its phonetic spelling, a Speak button and its stage;
• a Memory Curve that plots how well you are likely to remember it, from 30 days ago to 30 days ahead, with your reviews marked in green (Know), orange (Fuzzy) or red (Forgot) and the next due date;
• its definitions and the dictionary they came from;
• when you first and last looked it up, how many times you reviewed it and forgot it, and when it is next due.

Under the details are the actions for that word:

Action	What it does
Review Now	Makes the word due now and starts a review with it first.
Mark as Mastered	Marks a word you already know. It comes back in 60 days.
Relearn	Sends the word back to New. Its review history and lookup count are kept.
Suspend / Resume	Takes the word out of reviews, or puts it back.
Send to your app	Sends the word to Eudic or MaiMemo. Shown only when Sync to Wordbook Apps is set up.
Delete	Removes the word and its review history, after you confirm.

Right-click a word in the list for Review Now, Mark as Mastered, Suspend and Delete. Deleting from the right-click menu does not ask first.

Review

The Review segment shows your words as flashcards, one at a time. Today's round has every word that is due, overdue ones first, then a few new words, up to your New Words per Day (10 by default).

1. The card shows the word. Try to recall what it means.
2. Click Show Meaning, or press Space or Return, to turn the card over. The word is read aloud as it turns, unless you switched that off.
3. Grade yourself honestly:
   • Forgot (1): you did not remember it. It comes back after a few more cards in this round, and again tomorrow.
   • Fuzzy (2): you half remembered. It comes back a little later than last time.
   • Know (3): you remembered it. It comes back much later.

Under each button you can see when the word will come back if you choose it, for example "4 days" or "2 months".

More keys and links:

• S reads the word aloud.
• Undo (⌘Z) takes back your last grade and returns to that card.
• Stop learning this word suspends it and takes it out of the round.
• Esc goes back to Words.

When the round is done, you see how many words you reviewed, how many you knew and your streak of days in a row, with a little burst of confetti. Learn N more adds another batch of new words if you want to keep going. On a day with nothing due, Review Ahead lets you review the next words early, and Learn New Words starts on new ones.

Learning stages

Every word is at one of five stages, decided by how long TransOne currently waits before showing it again. The dots in the list and the stage pill show where it is.

Stage	Review interval
New	Not reviewed yet.
Learning ①	1 to 3 days.
Learning ②	3 to 7 days.
Learning ③	1 to 3 weeks.
Mastered	3 weeks or more.

Every time you know a word, the wait grows. Every time you forget it, the wait drops back to one day. Mastered words still come back now and then, just rarely. Suspended words never come back until you resume them.

Progress

The Progress segment shows how your vocabulary is growing:

• Tiles for words saved (and how many this week), words learning, words mastered, words due today, and your current and longest streak.
• Stages: how many words sit at each stage.
• Memory Curve: how much of your notebook you would still remember over the next 30 days if you stopped reviewing. It appears after your first review.
• Due Forecast: how many words fall due on each of the next 30 days.
• Daily Reviews: your reviews over the last 30 days, split into Forgot, Fuzzy and Know.
• Most Looked Up: the five words you look up most. Click one to open it.

Options

The … menu on the Words segment also holds the notebook's options:

• New Words per Day: 5, 10, 20, 30 or 50 new words a day. The default is 10. Due reviews are never capped.
• Pronounce on Reveal: read each word aloud when its card turns over. On by default. It uses your speech engine.

Import from History

Import from History… in the … menu adds the words already in your history that have a dictionary result. Words already in the notebook are skipped, and every imported word starts as New. This only happens when you click it; history is never added on its own.

Export

Export… in the … menu saves every word in the notebook to a file, in one of two formats:

• CSV: one row per word with its translation, definitions, phonetic spelling, lookup count, dates and stage. Opens in Numbers, Excel or any spreadsheet.
• Anki (TSV): a text file ready for Anki. The front of each card is the word; the back is the translation, the pronunciation and the definitions. In Anki, choose File ▸ Import.

Turn it off

The switch at the top right of the Vocabulary page turns the notebook on and off. It is on by default. When it is off, no new words are saved and the Looked up N times pill disappears, but the words you already have stay: you can still review, export or delete them.

Start over

Two actions in the … menu clear the notebook. Both ask you to confirm first.

• Reset Review Progress… sends every word back to New. Definitions and lookup counts stay.
• Delete All Words… removes every word and its review history. Your translation history is not affected.

Privacy and backup

The notebook lives on your Mac and makes no network requests of its own. Two things can send a word elsewhere, and only because you set them up: reading it aloud with a cloud speech engine, and sending it to Eudic or MaiMemo with Sync to Wordbook Apps.

A settings backup includes your words and their review progress, and importing a backup replaces the notebook on that Mac.

Related

• Dictionary, the lookups that fill your notebook.
• Sync to Wordbook Apps, to send words to Eudic or MaiMemo too.
• History and favorites