Idea for an app. Feedback needed.

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peterch

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Oct 14, 2012
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Hi everyone!


I've recently started working on a simple tool to help me memorize new grammar structures. I'm building this for myself, out of need to speed up my learning. I find it useful and I'm curious whether anyone else would be interested in it.

It's a simple web app for saving sentences & phrases from the online texts you read. I'd say it's targeted at upper-intermediate and advanced learners.

Here's how it works:

* You install a simple button (bookmarklet) in your browser
* You go to, say, nytimes.com, find an article you want to read
* You click the button. Now every time you stumble upon a piece of text that interests you,
you simply select & copy it. The button detects that and automatically saves
the selection and the whole paragraph around it to the application database.

(I'm not allowed to post screenshots here, so if anyone's interested in how it looks now, please email me)

The general idea is to preserve new material in the right context and give you the ability to review it later. You simply create a database of sentences you want to memorize - within the original context they appear.

I've been using it for a couple of days on my laptop and iPad, and although I find it helpful, there are
some problems in the long run.

It works great when the database is fairly small, but I'm not sure how to organize it once it grows to hundreds or thousands of records. There definitely needs to be a way to archive memorized material and organize everything else into some meaningful and easy-to-review structure.

My questions for you:
1. Would you use a tool like that?
2. What would be the best & most convenient way for you to review the material? Daily emails? Supermemo-like browser?
3. How would you organize the material?
4. What kind of features would you need to include such an app in your daily English-learning routines?

I'd really appreciate your feedback.
 

Tdol

No Longer With Us (RIP)
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The ides of saving the whole paragraph is good- we have thousands of questions about meaning here where it isn't clear because the wider context has been lost.
 
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