Flashcards

Flashcards can help you study and remember words you want to learn.

You can make flashcards using small paper cards: On the front side of each card, write a word or phrase you want to learn. On the back side, write the meaning or translation.

Every day, review your cards: Look at one side of each card and try to remember what is on the other side. Then look at the other side to check your answer.

• If your answer was correct, put the card in a pile to review again tomorrow.
• If your answer was not correct, put the card in a pile to review again after an hour.

A computer can also be used to review flashcards:

• You can use our simple flashcard tool by clicking here: Simple Flashcards.
• Or you can use flashcard software from other websites (for example: memrise.com or quizlet.com).

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Universal semantic molecules

The Learn These Words First lessons explain about 300 semantic molecules. These semantic molecules were identified by computer-aided analysis of paraphrased dictionary definitions.

Many of these same semantic molecules were independently identified by Cliff Goddard and Anna Wierzbicka. The following lists are adapted from their briefing paper for the "Global English, Minimal English" symposium (July 2015, ANU, Canberra).

Universal or near-universal semantic molecules

• Defined in Learn These Words First lessons: animal (creature), around, back, bird, blood, bottom, burn (fire), centre (middle), child, day, drink, ear, eat, egg, eye, fish, flat, front, ground, grow, hair (fur), hand, hard, head, heavy, hold, laugh, leg, light, long, make, man, mouth, name (called), nose, play, quickly, round, sharp, sit, sky, sleep, smooth, straight, sun, sweet, top, tree, water, woman.
• Not in the lessons: born, breast, dance, face, father, feather, finger, fingernail, husband, kill, lie, mother, night, on, sing, skin, slowly, soft, tail, tooth, wife, wing.

Semantic molecules found in many languages

• Defined in Learn These Words First lessons: alcohol, boat, book, bread, building, buy, car, cat, cloth, cold, colour, country, day, doctor, dog, electricity, game, god, hot, house, line, machine, metal, milk, money, month, music, number, paper, read, room, salt, school, seed, sheep, soldier, sour, string (thread), wheel, write, year.
• Not in the lessons: ball, bank, bed, china, church, city, clock, computer, corn, cow, dot, earth, engine, flour, glass, grass, horse, hospital, iron, leather, meat, mouse, nurse, oil, pig, plane, potato, rain, rice, road, sand, sea, soup, sugar, table, teacher, tobacco, train, village, week, wheat, wind, wire, wool.

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Google Translate

You can use Google Translate (translate.google.com) to translate sentences to and from English.

• Think about how you would translate a sentence to or from English. Then use Google Translate to check your understanding of English vocabulary and grammar.
• Type a sentence in English and see it translated to your choice of 103 other languages. Or type a sentence in one of these other languages and see it translated to English. (Note that computer translations sometimes contain mistakes.)
• Click a phrase in the translation to highlight the corresponding phrase in the other language and list alternative translations for the phrase.
• Double-click a word in either language to show the word's definition and list alternative translations for the word. (This works for some languages.)
• You can listen to the pronunciation of sentences in English (and in some other languages).
• Google Translate is also available as a mobile-phone application.

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