Recently, I wrote in a series of articles about what methods of learning foreign words exist. In particular, the most popular way is to use word cards. Let me remind you of its essence. We take a stack of small cards (for example, in the form of a business card), on one side we write the word itself, on the other – its translation into the desired language. We try to remember the words, shuffle the cards, remember the translations, and so on, until we remember all the words from the stack.

The Internet, or rather an interesting service for learning foreign words, will help automate and significantly expand the capabilities of this method. WordSteps.com . You ask — how? I'm telling you more.WordSteps is based on a set of thematic dictionaries that allow you to study words in 9 different languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese and Russian. Users can create their own dictionaries, or use the dictionaries of other service members.

For example, you decided to create your own set of words. The procedure for entering words is automated as much as possible. You enter a word, the built-in Google Translate service immediately offers a suitable translation. In addition, transcription is prescribed automatically for English words. Most words are voiced by native speakers. We have compiled a dictionary and get access to 6 exercises, including one of the main ones: “Word cards". However, in the performance of the WordSteps service, this exercise has several more features than the word translation. First, you can enable the hint mode. Secondly, full statistics of correct and incorrect answers are kept. Statistics are stored in the student's profile and allows you to track the progress of vocabulary replenishment.

You can also use ready-made kits that have been created by other users of the system. The best dictionaries are selected by voting.

In fact, word cards are only a small fraction of the possibilities that the service provides for memorizing words. The idea of WordSteps is to be able to learn new words as quickly and efficiently as possible. To do this, the project offers to use the free mobile application WordSteps Mobile Client. You will be able to download dictionaries from the site and learn words on the road with the help of 5 available exercises.

The developers also suggest trying the WordSteps Reader utility, the essence of which is the ability to translate unknown words when reading texts and immediately form words from them and upload to the site. Next, go to your profile and learn words from the texts with exercises that are already familiar to us.

In general, if you have problems with memorizing words or are tired of constant cramming, WordSteps will help diversify learning and improve the quality of memorizing foreign words.