Sakana Vocabulary

VS Code extension that helps language learners memorize vocabulary — stealthily in a real terminal, or in a proper webview UI.

Official name: Sakana Vocabulary
MVP language: French (English & Japanese planned later)

Features

1. Terminal study mode — real VS Code terminal (Pseudoterminal) that looks like a normal shell session
2. Webview UI — richer card view with the same study flow
3. Toggle between terminal and UI with one shortcut
4. Vocabulary cards — French word, IPA pronunciation, English meaning, sample sentence + English translation
5. Previous / Next navigation (global shortcuts + terminal keys)
6. SM-2 spaced repetition with auto-scheduling (revealing then going next = “Good”; optional “Forgot”)
7. Daily progress — list today’s new words, and unlock more anytime
8. Vocabulary book — look up words in the built-in dictionary and add them

Learning order

New words follow a gentle → harder path:

1. Starter (~145 everyday survival words): greetings → people → places/food → core verbs → simple adjectives/numbers → essential glue words
2. CEFR A1 → C2 using FLELex (textbook-graded frequencies)
3. Within each level: more common / concrete words first; clitics and proper names later

The study queue introduces new words in this order (after due reviews). Each card shows its level (starter, A1, …).

~12,000 entries. Meanings come from a bilingual FR→EN dictionary (not raw multi-sense Wiktionary dumps):

Core learner words use hand-written example sentences. Remaining entries keep good bilingual examples when available; otherwise they get meaning-aware crafted sentences (not “Le mot X veut dire …” templates).

Shortcuts

Inside the terminal

How scheduling works

• Algorithm: SM-2 (Anki-style forgetting curve)
• Auto-schedule: after you reveal a card, pressing Next records a “Good” review and sets the next due date
• Forgot (Ctrl+Alt+F / f): resets the streak and schedules a sooner review
• Default new words per day: sakanaVocab.dailyNewLimit (default 20) — this is a goal, not a hard stop
• Want more? Ctrl+Alt+M, Today’s list → Learn 10 more, terminal more / more 15, or UI Learn 10 more
• Ctrl+Alt+D opens today’s learned-word list

Today’s words

Ctrl+Alt+D (or status-bar Sakana, or terminal today) shows:

1. Actions: Learn 10 more / Learn more… / Continue studying
2. Every new word you introduced today (click one to inspect / add to book)

Local data

Progress and your vocabulary book are stored locally on your machine in the extension’s global storage (follows your VS Code user profile, not a single workspace folder):

• learned/review state (SM-2)
• vocabulary book word IDs
• daily stats

Install (development)

npm install
npm run compile

Then in VS Code: Run → Start Debugging (or F5) with this folder open, or pack with:

npx vsce package

Commands palette

Search for Sakana Vocabulary in the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P).

Settings

• sakanaVocab.dailyNewLimit — default daily new-word goal (default 20); unlock more anytime
• sakanaVocab.defaultView — terminal (default) or ui

Rebuild dictionary (optional)

# prerequisites under /tmp: fr_ipa.txt, fr_freq.txt, fren-dict/fr-en.txt, kaikki/french.jsonl
# CEFR levels: /tmp/flelex/FleLex_TT_Beacco.tsv
python3 scripts/rebuild_trusted_dict.py
python3 scripts/reorder_learning_path.py

License

See LICENSE. Dictionary content remains under the licenses of its upstream sources (notably CC BY-SA for Wiktionary-derived glosses/examples).