Kindle Vocabulary Builder – Export

If you are using a Kindle for reading books in a foreign language, you've probably already known1 the Vocabulary Builder. I use this tool not only for looking up the words I do not know, but also as a source for the words I have to learn.

As described earlier (https://www.italki.com/notebook/3075997/entry/673924), there is a limitation2 of 2,000 words which makes you loste3 many words you have collected during the reading process – at least if you have to look up a lot of words like me.

Now (Below),4 I will show how to overcome this limitation and save your words for later learning. As a side benefit,5 you can identify the most important words and learn them by priority.

First you have to connect the Kindle to your computer via USB. If you are using a Mac (like me), you have to showdisplay/reveal6the “invisible” files. Open the terminal (located in the program-folder) and type in (without the quotation marks): “defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1“, followed by return. Then, restart the finder e.g. by right-click on the finder-symbol in your dock while pressing the alt-key and then choose “Relaunch”.

Navigate wWith your Finder, navigate7 to the folder “Kindle > System > vocabulary” and copy the file “vocab.db” to your Desktop.

To open this file, you need a program like “DB Browser for SQLite” (or “SQLVault Lite”, which you can find in the Mac App Store). All the data are allocated in different tables, so you need some magic (also know as “SQL Statement”) to gather the information and sort itthem8 in a convenient way.

In SQLVault Lite, choose “Create New View” and use (enter?)9 the following SQL Statement:

SELECT
w.word
,group_concat(l.usage || '(' || b.title || ')

' )  as usage
,count(l.usage) as count_usage
,l.timestamp as zuletzt

FROM
WORDS w

LEFT JOIN LOOKUPS l
on l.word_key=w.id
LEFT JOIN BOOK_INFO b
on b.guid=l.book_key

GROUP BY
w.word

ORDER BY count_usage DESC, l.timestamp DESC

Then, the tab “Data > HTML View” showswill show9 you a more or less beautiful list of your words, including the context where you picked it up, ordered on top with the words you had looked up more frequently on top10.

Simply copy & paste the list to a spreadsheet (e. g. Google Tables). Later, I will tell you more about my experience of handling these tables.

By the way, my solution is inspired from this thread in the Kindle Help Community: http://goo.gl/sR3X13

Kindle Vocabulary Builder - Limitation

I use a Kindle for reading English novels. It's quite convenient looking up the unknown words in the dictionary. Of course, this works on an iPad too. But only on the Kindle can I see all the words I've ever looked up in a list — and even the context where I picked up the words is shown there.

That way, I've collected a lot of words in the last two months. Unfortunately, the built-in flashcard functionality is very basic and if you have more than a few hundred words, it's not really handy any more.

That's why I began to transfer the words to a software specialized for flashcards and "space repetition" called Anki.

Reading the books went better than expected, although I really had to look up a lot of words. Although I had deleted the words in the Kindle list immediately after transferring them to Anki, the list got longer every day.

Yesterday I wondered why the list stopped growing even after I had read a rather difficult passage containing many unknown words. I checked up on this and found out the reason: there is a limit of 2000 words, which means the Kindle throws away the oldest entries.

First I was kind of shocked: large parts of the beautiful words I had collected were gone even before I had started to learn them. How frustrating!

But this morning, I did some research on the internet and this broadened my horizon.

To be continued ...

Post in Support Forum (Anki)

I just posted a comment in the support forum of Anki: https://anki.tenderapp.com/discussions/ankimobile/3774-ankimobile-update-1203-removal-of-statistics-shortcut-in-global-overview#comment_39388914

It's not too late for me to edit my comment there. So I ask you to correct my mistakes below. Thanks a lot in advance!

----

Hi Damien,

I am not very happy with the new location of the statistic button. Usually I look up for the statistic _before_ I start reviewing or _after_ I have finished reviewing my cards. I never go to the statistics _while_ doing the review (while should be accompanied with a verb, or you could say "during the review", which does not need a verb).

But this is where the statistic button is located now: In order to get there I have to open my deck and immediately the first question is asked. In my opinion this makes not much sense.

I have been using Anki for 37 days now and I look at the statistics several times every day. For me it's kind of motivating. Now unfortunately, it's very complicated to get there.

It would be great if you could (could is used to sound more polite) put the button back to the old place again - or even you will find a better location within reach.

By the way: Thank you very much for your awesome work. It's extremely helpful for learning vocabulary as I mentioned here: https://www.italki.com/notebook//entry/665123

Ralf

Very good and natural-sounding. Just a few stylistic tweaks I needed to add. Keep it up!