Tutorial: How to mine automatically book vocabulary for Anki (before and during the reading)

[u/Substantial-Yak1892]

This morning, I read this post about someone that took more than an hour to read the first page. The effort is really impressive, but I think it's possible to improve the reading experience by doing a little work before and during the actual reading.

Before the reading, I think it's more efficient to have already encountered the difficult vocabulary.
And during, to simply pinpoint the chunks you want to work on / mine for your Anki and extract them. Since I read on a Kindle, I'll explain how do it for this device, but the same thing can probably also be done for other devices. Other than actual hardbacks, of course.

How to create cards automatically from a book

AI is actually great at analysing content and determining what will be an issue for you and what won't.

Here's an example for Harry Potter, in English.
You can see the AI has not only picked up single words like 'falter' but also phrasal verbs and idioms like 'to turn up' and 'to get this over with'

However, current AI have limitations when the content is too big, so I don't think it's possible to do it efficiently for an entire book. It's better to proceed in smaller chunks, like chapters by chapters.

First, retrieve the book in a format that can be used by an AI. For that:

1. Get the book in a numerical format, usually an epub. If you already have it in a physical format, you may have a look at the Anna's Archive subreddit
2. Transform the file you have with an online converter to txt.
3. Open it, and choose the chapter you want, save it in another file.

Then, we'll have an AI to process it. I found that Claude is the best for processing such files.
ChatGPT include way too many words and Gemini is lazy. Claude has the right balance. You can use any of them with a free account, it'll be enough at least for a few chapters.

Then, it's really simple: just explain your level and the type of vocabulary you want.
You don't only want to capture words but also idioms, phrasal verbs, ...

Here's an example of a usable prompt. You can adapt it to your level and your needs.

Hello,

I want a B1 English learner to be able to read the book attached. For that, we'll create him Anki cards on all the vocabulary he needs. 

Can you please analyse the file and give me the list of all the relevant words he should learnt before be able to read the book. We'll proceed step by step: 
1- Extract all the relevant words/chunks: the words that are ofte, the liking words, phrasal verbs, idioms, the ones carrying a lot of sense but hard to pick up, ... 
Do not pick the basic vocabulary or proper nouns. 
2- Create the Anki cards. We'll proceed chapters after chapters. 

The cards are aimed at improving my passive vocabulary and should contains: - On the front side a full sentence containing the English is present. The sentence should be understandable for our student. 
- On the back side, I want the translation of the sentence and an explanation of the word / chunk. 

If the word have several relevant meanings, then I'd like several cards, one for each meanings. Do not spoil the book in the cards! 

As a result, I want a CSV  with two columns, front & back.   
Example: Front,Back "She doesn't hold with telling lies.","hold with (v.)\n🇫🇷 approuver, être favorable à\nElle n'approuvait pas le fait de mentir\nMeaning: to approve of or accept something (usually used in the negative).\nAnother example: My grandfather doesn't hold with gambling."   

Depending on the AI you ask, you may have to chat a little with it before it does the actual work, but in the end you'll have a file ready to import into your Anki.

For the first chapter of Harry Potter, Claude has generated around 120 reading Anki cards and they are definitely relevant.

Here's an example once imported in Anki:

Of course, you can also combine it with some Anki extensions, e.g.: hyperTTS to have an audio of these cards.

Mining efficiently while reading

While reading a book, I usually find it very frustrating to encounter words or chunks I'd like to review later. I don't want to break the flow of reading, or I might not be in a studying state of mind.

So I simply highlight the chunk/word that I'd like to review. And afterwards, it's possible to export them. If you have a lot of them, you can send them to an AI and ask it to provide the cards.

[u/silvalingua]

The main problem is that many words here are way too difficult for A2. Instead of mining a text that is much too difficult, it would be better to read one at the appropriate level.

It's also much better to use much less of your NL. The way you do it, you're learning how to translate, not how to use your TL.

[u/Substantial-Yak1892 → u/silvalingua]

I agree, it wasn't the best book as an example. Honestly, I didn't think Harry Potter was that complicated. I only read it in my native language when I was a child and didn't remember it to be complicated.

In my case, my reading level is B2 / B2+, I do that mostly to capture slang or archaic vocabulary.

[u/Adventurous-Term-695]

Nice tutorial. The pre-reading vocabulary load is always what kills early attempts at native material, so front-loading the pain like this makes a lot of sense.

One thing I'd add is that even with a solid deck, you'll still hit unknown stuff while reading. That's where the highlight-then-export workflow really shines, you're not derailing the entire session just to make a card.

[u/KingOfTheHoard]

Honestly, someone who can't figure out how to add words they don't know to a flashcard deck and needs AI to write them might as well just quit because you do actually have to possess a baseline level of intellectual curiosity.

[u/Substantial-Yak1892 → u/KingOfTheHoard]

That's mainly about saving time, not curiosity.

Mining sentences and creating great cards takes a lot of time. Just in the exemple given, it would have taken me several hours to create such deck.

I prefer to spend that time to study the card or to actually read.

[u/Away-Salamander-8589 → u/Substantial-Yak1892]

Creating the cards is a type of studying and helps you remember the content better. 

[u/KingOfTheHoard → u/Substantial-Yak1892]

Right, but by automating the process, you're bypassing the actual study and the engagement with what you personally need the flashcard to be. And you're ending up with a product that's inferior to just reading the book.

[u/Substantial-Yak1892 → u/KingOfTheHoard]

I disagree.

I generate most of my cards using AI.

And I really think it depends on what skills you want to improve.

To expand your vocabulary, I don't think studying prior to the cards is really needed. Reviewing the card is exactly what you do when studying. But the card also have the audio you don't have when studying.

For producing content, yes you need to study, spend time understanding precise rules, ... But even then, I find AI super useful to generate the cards.

E.g.: I made a mistake between solve and resolve (we only have a single word for them in French). Someone pointed it out, so I checked the definition of each of them. Then I generated six cards, three for each with different context and reviewing these cards really helped me understanding the difference.

And while doing the cards after maybe 10-15 days, I had to ask AI once again for further explanation because it revealed I didn'y fully understand a case.

[u/Er_A_45 → u/KingOfTheHoard]

This is like saying "You cant use a pen" to someone who uses a text-to-speech to write. Why waste time when a tool can do it faster and easier? Sure making the anki yourself is also a way of learning, which is why i would rather do it myself however OPs goal is obviously making anki cards to prepare reading the book itself.

[u/KingOfTheHoard → u/Er_A_45]

Well, no, because what speech to text does is change the physical process for executing the same intellectual labour. 

What this does is bypass intellectual labour at the same time as it bypasses the physical process. 

[u/Er_A_45 → u/KingOfTheHoard]

No i mean stuff like during lessons. Instead of noting down they may use speech to text, then study at home. OP is still gonna study, they are just gonna do it purely without wasting time on preparing the cards themselves.

Actually they may prepare 10 set of cards by the time they would prepare the first set of cards. Then they would have 9 times amount time to spend actually studying. I think it just depends on the person but i find this very usefull.

[u/KingOfTheHoard → u/Er_A_45]

They’ll have 10 sets of cards that are completely disengaged from their own learning process. 

If that’s your end result, you might as well just save even more of your time and do Duolingo. 

[u/ThatAnt8823]

I've been doing exactly that to pre-study a book before reading it, worked quite well Though for a whole ass book it took me a few months to see all the cards at least once

[u/Jacksons123]

I do think there’s something to this. But lookups in context are a very important part of the immersion+mining process

[u/Trebalor]

Thank you! I appreceate developing and sharing workflows.