In response to my entry this morning I got a couple comments from my friend Grady that I think are worth more than a simple comment back.
Why not just something that will enable me to just click on the work and have the definition just pop up?
There are a couple reasons, though they may not apply to everyone
1) I like the idea of uninterrupted reading. I load a page, sit back and read. If I have to move the mouse to each word, click, and wait for the definition to come up, that’ll mess up my flow, da mojo.
2) Having the definition already there keeps me from being lazy. It’s not a lot of effort to click on a word, but what if I’m feeling self-conscious about the large numbers of words I don’t know, I may be tempted to gloss over them. How embarrassing, I should know these.
3) Seeing them twice will help retention. I want to review a list of words before starting and then have them reinforced during the course of the article
4) I have a couple additional enhancements in mind that require the program to know what I know.
The first of these is making flashcards. The extension can keep track of which words I come across frequently and make a list for offline review. This could be made easy by using business card blanks. I format them for the type of cards I have, run then through the printer, flip em over and print the other side.
The second enhancement will help me watch movies. Many/most movies have subtitles available somewhere online. I could download and process those giving me a kind of a script. Break it down in sections. For the next 10 minutes, I’ll need to know these 15 words. Instead of pausing every minute or two, I can enjoy the flow of the move more.
A last comment I’ll make on the topic (until Grady comes up with something else) is that I could see myself using this for English! I don’t know if I’m getting ahead of myself on this, but how often do we look words in our own language?