Linking your vocabulary lists to a book chapter

The Vocab Trainer can be used to learn any list of words or phrases but one way of proceeding is to create a list of words from a novel in the target language. This works best if the novel can also be obtained as an unabridged audiobook, and an English version of the text is available. By chopping the novel's text and audio into sentences, it is possible to see each new word in context, with simultaneous audio and an English translation. The German additon of Harry Potter (Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen) is ideal for this purpose, and will be used as an example. Note that this is an advanced technique, not recommended for beginners, but Cerebware would be happy to help teachers with the process.


Extracting the Words

You will need the source text in digital format. This is easily achieved with a scanner or, in some cases, by searching the internet. You might have to type the text in yourself, which is slow but well worth the effort. Save the text file as a standard plain Windows text file, which has a '.txt' suffix. A Word document is inappropriate, as it contains extraneous formatting data. The recommended way of generating your text file is to paste the text into a new text file within the Vocab Trainer but, if you already have a text file, just open it within the Trainer. The result will look something like this:

The next step is to extract the words. Make sure you have 'View Advanced Features' turned on (available under the File menu). Backup your original source text first, and then click 'Extract Words'.

The result will be a list of all the unique words in your document. Inevitably, this will require some cleaning up: duplicates will arise because of differing capitalisation, declined forms, and so on. (Cerebware will mark potential duplicates with tags, but this feature is not yet fully developed for languages other then German.) Convert each word to its dictionary form, look up each word in an online dictionary, and then add the English definitions and articles to create a text file in the standard Cerebware list format (foreign phrase : english phrase). Save the result with the suffix '.lst'. (See 'Creating vocab lists' for more details on how to create list files.)

Extracting Sentences

Return to your source text and break it into sentences. Cerebware can automate this process to a large extent: choose 'Extract Sentences' from the Text Manipulation Tools. This tool works by inserting line-returns after fullstops/periods, but the process needs human supervision because of the potential for errors. Fullstops might indicate abbreviations rather than new sentences, some sentences might be too long and have a natural break at some punctuation point other than a fullstop, and every user will have their own preferences on how to deal with dialogue. The details are not important, as long as you break the text up into sentence-sized chunks.

Once the text has been divided into sentences (or other meaningful chunks), with a clear line break between each 'chunk', select 'Number sentences' from the Text Manipulation Tools. Save the resulting text file with the suffix '.chp' to indicate that it is now in Cerebware chapter format. The main requirements of this format are that the text file must contain an empty line between sentences, and each sentence must be numbered.

The result should look something like this:

Linking Vocab Items to Sentences

The final step is to link each vocabulary item to the sentence in which it first appears. There are two ways of doing this - with manually typed text tags, or within the Edit window.

Manual Tags. Any list file containing foreign words and their definitions may optionally include tags next to some items to indicate that they are associated with a particular sentence. Sentence tags should appear at the end of the item, within curly brackets, as follows:

ein : a { | HPSW1.1}
der Junge : the boy { | HPSW1.1}
überleben : to survive { | HPSW1.1}
und : and {HPSW1.2}
im : in the [dative masc or neut] { | HPSW1.2}
der Weg : the way ; the lane { | HPSW1.2}
Ligusterweg : Privet Drive { | HPSW1.2}
die Nummer : the number { | HPSW1.2}

The above entries indicate that the first three items (in red) are associated with sentence 1 from chapter 1 of 'Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen' - in fact, they come from the chapter title - while the next four (in blue) are associated with sentence 2 of the same chapter. The tags have 2 parts separated by dots: a chapter tag ('HPSW1', where the '1' stands for 'Chapter 1'), a sentence number ('1', '2', etc). The chapter tag must match the name of the previously prepared chapter file ('.chp' file) in which the sentences have been set off in separate paragraphs, as described above. (The program adds '.chp' to the tag, and then looks for a file of that name.) The chapter tag does not have to be numbered, and could have been 'EinJungeÜberlebt' or 'EJÜ' (with corresponding chapter files 'EinJungeÜberlebt.chp', or 'EJÜ.chp') but most books do not have named chapters. The sentences do need to be numbered, however, and the sentence numbers indicated in the curly braces must correlate with the numbers in the chapter file.

The tag { | HPSW1.1} actually has two fields, separated by a vertical line | . Within curly braces, the first field is the name of the relevant audio file (left blank in this example) and the second field is the sentence tag itself (a chapter tag, then a dot, and then the sentence number). If the audiofile matches the sentence tag (e.g. 'HPSW1.1.mp3', or 'HPSW1.1.au'), then it does not need to be specified - the program will find it by searching the audio subfolder.

(For completion, you might want to note that two more fields are possible within the curly braces: the third field, if present, specifies a 'footnote' that is interpreted as an instruction to load an explanatory text file when the item appears, and the fourth field, if present, specifies the name of a pronunciation audio file. To specify a later field without an earlier field, insert the vertical lines but leave the earlier field blank. See 'File formats' for a full explanation.)

Adding Tags Within the Edit Window. If you already have a vocabulary file, into which you have already imported the words from your chapter, there is a quicker way to associate each word with its corresponding chapter and sentence. Open up the Edit window, and switch to 'Advanced' mode. Go to the first item that needs a sentence tag, and then click on the 'der Satz' tab, which can be found in the right half of the Edit window, near the top. (The name of this tab will be different for languages other than German.)


If you have not yet attached the relevant chapter to any items, click 'Browse' to find your chapter file on your computer's hard drive. (The best place to keep chapter files is in the Vocab Trainer folder, where the Cerebware.exe file resides). The filename will appear above the 'Browse' button to tell you when it is loaded. If no chapter is loaded, you will see the text 'Loading...' or 'No chapter for this item' within the 'der Satz' tab. Once the chapter is loaded, however, you will see the sentence associated with the item, or the first sentence in the chapter.

By clicking on the '|<' or '>|' buttons, you can leaf forwards or backwards through the chapter, one sentence at a time (or ten sentences at a time with the '|<<' or '>>|' buttons). When you find the sentence that matches the current item, click 'Apply' to transfer the chapter tag and sentence number to that item. The relevant tags will appear in the appropriate text windows on the left half of the Edit window, and the contextual audio will be updated by adding an 'au' suffix to the chapter-sentence tag.

After clicking the 'Apply' button, the Sentence tag should indicate the chapter source, followed by a fullstop/period, and then the sentence number. (This is the same as the tag that would appear in curly brackets within the list file).

Usually, several consecutive items all belong to the same sentence, so click on the 'Next Item' button ( '>') in the left half of the Edit window to step forward one vocab item, then click 'Apply' again. Repeat this process until a word appears that comes from the next sentence, then advance by one sentence and click 'Apply'. In this way, a whole chapter can be assigned quite quickly.

Note that, if an item is already associated with a sentence, this sentence will appear in the 'der Satz' tab automatically (replacing whatever was there) as soon as the item appears in the left half of the Edit window. To suppress this behaviour, and to keep the currently chosen sentence in the 'der Satz' tab, click the 'lock' checkbox.

Optionally, an English chapter can also be asociated with each item. It must contain the same number of sentences as the foreign-language chapter, and the numbering of the English sentences must correlate with the sentences in the target language. (If necessary, combine two short sentences or split a long one to keep this correspondence.) The English chapter must be in a plain text file, bearing the same name as its foreign partner, but with the suffix '.eng' instead of '.chp'. (In the example we have been considering, the title of the English chapter should be 'HPSW1.eng'). The English chapter does not need to be loaded with the Browse button, it should simply reside in the same folder as the foreign chapter, and it will be loaded automatically if it exists.


During a training session, when a word is reached that belongs to a previously unseen sentence, a window will pop up and give the sentence, its translation if available, and a list of the words assigned to it. Try to memorise these words and dissect the structure of the sentence before dismissing the window and returning to the test. Later, as you try to learn the words, a similar window will pop up whenever an item is causing you particular difficulty, but it will suppress the definitions for words you know. By using the words you do know to work out the meaning of the word you have forgotten, you will powerfully reinforce your existing knowledge, and begin to create the contextual links necessary for natural language use.

Combined with the other mnemonic principles employed by Cerebware, learning vocabulary through a book chapter is a highly efficient way of acquiring vocabulary. The technique is particularly powerful when audiofiles are created from audiobooks, and Cerebware would be delighted to help you with this process - there are many free or cheap audio editors available online. For more details, see 'Setting up audio'. Once the vocabulary of a chapter has been learned, students can listen to the audiobook without pausing to look up words, and soon they will stop performing the translations in their head. Choose the right audiobook, and it is actually fun!