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'
https://preview.redd.it/pjsa73oz9gch1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=028b49379c6194464cd9097af77156204188daba
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:
- 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
- Transform the file you have with an online converter to txt.
- 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:
https://preview.redd.it/i0gt14plbgch1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=11c5b2852729ddf4e981e2fe7b6d017213b659c7
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.
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