How to learn with CarveWords?

Vocabulary test

Take a vocabulary test (e.g. Preply's English vocabulary test) to a have more precise knowledge of your vocabulary level. After that, on the Progress tab of the extension's Options use the Custom English level to write down the number of words you know.

GDLT

There are different ways to learn new words. If you already have one that works for you, great - use it. But if you are looking for a new one - try GDLT.

GDLT stands for Guess, Define, Look and Translate steps. Let's break down each one of them:

1. Guess - When we encounter an unknown word our brain automatically tries to guess its meaning. The thing is that you can increase your chances of guessing by taking into account a few details.

   1. Consider in what context is the word used - the sentence in which the word is used, images (if there are any), the whole text in general. Also, consider the general topic of the text. For e.g. you are reading an article about middle ages Europe, your prior knowledge of the subject might give you a hint.

   2. If it's a long word try to break it down into parts. For e.g. the word "pancake". You might not know its meaning but you might notice that it consists of the words "pan" and "cake". And from there you might deduce that pancake is some kind of cake that is cooked on a pan.

Guessing might have three outcomes - your guess fits well in the context, you have no guess, or something in between. If you have a good guess, that's it - no need to do the rest of the steps, just keep on reading. If you have no guess try the next step - Define, and if you have a weak guess, check it - translate.

2. Define - Look up the English definition of the word. For e.g. google "unknown-word definition". If the first definition doesn't ring a bell - keep on reading. And do neglect the examples, similar words, and origin of the word. Still, you might not understand what it means even if you read the whole definition. No worries try the next step.

3. Look - check out what images did Google find for that word. The visuals might help you guess the meaning. Have in mind that if the word is an abstract concept the visual might not make seance.
   And one more thing, after a bunch of cycles through the GDLT steps if you notice definitions don't help, swap it's place with the Look - GLDT. That is, after guessing look up the images. I would still suggest reading the definitions even if it's not comprehensible because this helps you to get into the habit of it.

4. Translate - finally, if none of the previous steps helped you learn the meaning of the word translate it.
   You might ask, why is the translation the last step instead of the first one? Is not it the fastest and easiest way to learn the meaning of the word? Well, yes, but it depends on what you mean by learning; what is your goal? If you just want to become aware of words meaning then yes - translate. But if you want the words meaning to stick in your mind translation is not that effective. Because when you translate your brain focuses on the translation in your native language, not on the English form of the word. While with the Guess, Define, and Look you force your brain to focus on the English word.

I must note that this GDLT method is speculative, so take this advice with a grain of salt. And if you use it, your feedback is more than welcome.

Dictionary extensions

CarveWords' main focus is on retrieval practice and comprehensible content generation (see more in Mission). But there are other tools that might be helpful for learning new words. So, I recommend using existing extensions. E.g. for dictionaries, these are my two recommendations:

1. Google Dictionary - simple yet effective way to quickly see the word's definition. I personally use this one; I like that its UI is not overcrowded with features.

2. eJOY - but if you prefer a swiss-knife-like learning tool then check out eJOY's extension, it has a lot of features. Plus, a learning platform ejoy-english.com.

Real Examples

It's worth mentioning real-life examples of a given word. I personally find it useful to look threw examples of how a word is used to get a better understanding of a new word. For examples in sentences check out sentencedict.com and sentence.yourdictionary.com and for video examples - ejoy-english.com/go/wordhunt and youglish.com

When to learn words?

Pre, while, or post-reading? To put it short - it depends on a person and a situation. Speaking from personal experience, when I'm in the mood to learn new words I turn on CarveWords, go down the article, and learn all the new words. After that, I start reading the article with newly learned words in my working memory. But when I'm in a rush and just need to see what's the article about I might not use CarveWords at all.

Try different scenarios, and see what works best for you. And I'd love to hear feedback from you on this topic.

When to retrieve words?

One of the weaknesses of the current version of the extension is that the intervals (days) between the retrievals are not optimized for the forgetting curve. The extension doesn't have Spaced Repetition. This is something we will address in future versions, but for now, here is how you can partially* compensate for that with existing features:

*partially because Spaced Repetition has an optimal calendar for when to retrieve each word and this workaround doesn't account for that.