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Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

1901 points l2silver | 3 comments | 27 Apr 23 15:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.811s | source

Maybe you've created your own AR program for wearables that shows the definition of a word when you highlight it IRL, or you've built a personal calendar app for your family to display on a monitor in the kitchen. Whatever it is, I'd love to hear it.
1. cehrlich ◴[28 Apr 23 13:59 UTC] No.35741340[source]▶
When language learners learn vocab, there are two main processes: 1. Use a premade list of the top x words. Pro: they are guaranteed to be common words. Con: Once you make it past 2000 or so, they might not show up depending on what sort of niche things you read/watch/talk about 2. Look up random words as you come across them, and learn those. Pro: These are words you really saw. Con: You don't know how common that word is, maybe this is the only time in your life that you'll see it

I made a web app that lets you note down words that you come across and might want to learn, and then generates a learning order of those words based on a variety of frequency lists, as well as linking offsite for sample sentences etc. It allowed me to pass the JLPT N1 with just 6k known words (people usually need 8-10k)

vocab.c-ehrlich.dev

replies(1): >>35747548 #
2. captainkrtek ◴[28 Apr 23 21:52 UTC] No.35747548[source]▶
This is great! Would be curious to adapt this for other languages, as I’m currently using some flash cards of top N type frequency.
replies(1): >>35760807 #
3. cehrlich ◴[30 Apr 23 08:54 UTC] No.35760807[source]▶
Shouldn't be too difficult. The main thing you'd need is a dictionary that's as close as possible to covering the entire language (ie a digital-first one rather than a digital representation of a paper dictionary), and at least one but ideally several frequency lists. Ideally in the JSON format that Yomichan uses, as that's what the script for generating the data currently expects, but if not then the data can always be massaged. Then you just need to replace the specifics in the app (hardcoded frequency list names etc) with the stuff for your language.