Vocab decks and synonyms

[Asher]

Hi guys! Just wanted to touch base with you all about the state of the vocab decks.

Originally when we put the decks together, manual input (in English) was not something that we had planned. Our first thoughts were to do an anki style based purely on recognition, but then a lot of users requested input, so we thought that it would be a good option as well.

This led to the problem we have now with synonyms, as our original lists contained only the translations that each word had in the dictionaries that we obtained them from, rather than the potential myriad of answers that would be acceptable (colloquial expressions, regional words, abbreviations, UK vs USA English spelling, things in parentheses, things with hyphens, etc).

We initially did go through these lists and add quite a few extra words that we thought would be acceptable answers, but there is still a lot left missing. This is where the synonym system comes in. What we are planning on doing, at repeated intervals in the future, is pulling all of the information that we have on the website related to synonym input, and then updating our decks based on this.

What this means is that if the Japanese word is 医者, and our system shows that 10 users added ‘Doc’ as a synonym, and another 20 added ‘Quack’, we will add them as default ‘correct answers’, so that they become an acceptable answer for anyone.

This may seem potentially lazy on our part, but despite growing as a team recently, there is still a very limited number of us, with an even more limited knowledge of all of the potential ways certain things can be said. This proposed measure here is something that we plan on doing so that we can keep our focus on continued development, while also being able to use data in the future that users are actually inputting themselves.

Due to this approach, we would again like to encourage users to use the synonym feature, as your answers will more than likely make their way into the system after a short period of time, meaning that together we can potentially have almost all possible answers covered within quite a short period of time.

Thanks again to everyone that is participating in the beta/giving us lots of feedback about how we can make the features even better .

[mathijsdm]

Will those all be displayed? Or will it accept it upon entry? I’m just asking this, due to the fact you mentioned :

@Asher

and another 20 added ‘Quack’,

And I am quite scared that if these are visibly displayed people may get the wrong impression for certain words. I have been ‘guilty’ of using a different “wrong” term with synonyms because English isn’t my first language (like opthalmology however that’s spelled → Eye stuff) I know what it actually means, but this could give someone who sees the word for the first time a wrong impression.

This one worry aside, considering the size of the team this seems like a good (possibly interim) solution to get it geared up relatively quickly, nice idea!

[Asher]

Nope, they will not be displayed, as we don’t want people to develop the wrong sense of what the nuance for a certain word is. When it comes to acceptable answers though, we think it is okay to be a lot more lenient.

The actual vocab information page will never display more than the dictionary default translations.

[mathijsdm]

Okay, perfect This is a great idea then! One of my pet peeves using multiple SRS systems has always been that while system A uses x as a synonym, system B uses Y and I’d have to manually add synonyms. This means the experience might be slightly “painful” for the first users, but will make it a lot better for whoever follows ^^

The only other “problem” I can foresee is people just going along adding a wildcard to each synonym and that getting added. Will this ever be checked? (Please don’t prioritise this, you guys have more than enough else to focus on, was just wondering )

[Asher]

We will also review the answers that people are using frequently, before adding them as answers. For example if we find that 20 users added a particular synonym, but that synonym was actually wrong, we won’t add it.

In that case, we will add a warning/caution on the card about what the correct nuance is, so that people don’t associate it with the thing that was incorrect.

[mathijsdm]

Perfect!